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RELIGION 



RELATION TO THE PRESENT LIFE. 



IN A SERIES OF LECTURES, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIA- 
TION OF UTICA, 

BY A. B. JOHNSON, 

AND PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST. 



n 



N E W-Y R K : 

HARPER <fe BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET. 
184 1. 







Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840 by 

Harper & Brothers, 
in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. 



M i 



A. B. Johnson, Esq, 
Sir, 
I am instructed, by the Executive Board of the 
Young Men's Association of the City of Utica, to 
present you their thanks for the valuable and in- 
structive Lectures on Religion in its Relation to the 
Present Life, delivered by you before the Associa- 
tion, and to request that a copy of them may be fur- 
nished for publication. 

I have the honour to be 

Your obedient servant, 

C. Tracy, Cor. Sec. 
Utica, June 2, 1840. 



To the Young Men's Association of the City of Utica. 

I thank you for the polite notice which you have 
taken of my Lectures on Religion in its Relation 
to the Present Life. The title is intended to dis- 
criminate my subject from what is discussed in 
churches, and which is, perhaps too exclusively, 
Religion in its Relation to a Future Life. Our di- 
vines, looking at the unimportance of temporal evils 
when contrasted with eternal evils, advert too rare- 
ly, as dissuasives against misconduct, to its tempo- 
ral consequences. The Bible, however, details its 
temporal punishment, even miraculously, as by the 
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Deluge, 
the Expulsion from Paradise. 

Of the natural temporal punishments of miscon- 
duct, the Bible furnishes almost innumerable specifi- 
cations : as, " Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil 
shall not depart from his house :" " The drunkard 
and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsi- 
ness shall clothe a man with rags :" " Whoso dig- 
geth a pit (for another) shall fall therein ; and he 
that rolleth a stone (at another), it will return upon 
him :" " He that hath a perverse tongue falleth into 



mischief:" " He that saith unto the wicked, thou art 
righteous, him shall the people curse :" " A false 
witness shall not be unpunished :" " He that speak- 
eth lies shall not escape :" " The curse of the Lord 
is in the house of the wicked." 

Churches occupy the same relation to morality as 
common schools occupy to literature ; hence they 
should present morality under all its aspects. With 
unimportant exceptions, they are our only schools of 
morals ; the science which regulates health, peace, 
and prosperity. This accounts for the experimental 
fact, that men who abstain from churches are, as a 
class, unsuccessful in business, unhappy in their fam- 
ilies, and liable to sudden casualties. 

To the source of so much practical benefit, I 
therefore intend no captious or ungrateful remark ; 
and in the hope that my brief discourses, to which 
you listened kindly, may not lose all their supposed 
interest when exhibited in print, I cheerfully present 
them to you, agreeably to the request of your exec- 
utive committee. 

A. B. Johnson. 



CONTENTS. 

Lect Page 
I. EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE OBEYS DETER- 
MINATE LAWS . . . . . ,9 
II. THE CONDUCT WHICH RESULTS INJURIOUSLY . 37 

III. THE CONDUCT WHICH RESULTS BENEFICIALLY . 71 

IV. THE ART OF CONTROLLING OTHERS . . 103 
V. THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL . . . .129 



RELIGION 



RELATION TO THE PRESENT LIFE. 



LECTURE L 

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE OBEYS DETERMI- 
NATE LAWS. 

Should this room be filled with persons con- 
gregated to relieve the sick and to dissemi- 
nate the gospel, the floor would fall, and hurl 
the congregation into ruin, if the floor's physi- 
cal strength should be exceeded by the weight 
of only a child, who, in gayety and innocence, 
should run into the assemblage. Inanimate bod- 
ies are all subjected, like the floor, to laws which 
are inflexible and immutable. A knowledge of 
these laws constitutes our mechanical sciences 
and arts. 

Animate nature, also, is obedient to determinate 
laws. Should one of us, while sitting here, feel 



«LZ 



10 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

a current of air, he might be pleased as it rushed 
over his heated neck ; yet he will remove from 
the exposure, for he knows that his body will be- 
come disordered by the cooling, in this manner, 
of its surface. Of the laws which govern vital- 
ity, we have formed the sciences of surgery, ma- 
teria medica, with their subordinate branches. 

Even our thoughts are governed by determi- 
nate laws. The thoughts that I shall utter to- 
night I recollect by means of this paper, which 
is covered by only certain marks. I am able 
also, by means of the words that I shall utter, to 
excite in you any thoughts which I wish. The 
arts of reading, writing, and speaking owe their 
origin to a knowledge of the laws which gov- 
ern thoughts. 

Our passions, emotions, appetites, and desires 
(all which I will, for brevity, call our feelings), 
are subject to determinate laws. We know how 
to excite curiosity, arouse anger, sooth grief. 
Shakspeare causes us to laugh and weep, as he 
chooses to direct. And our feelings are not only 
governed by determinate laws, but the laws are 
wonderfully adapted to our good. Unlike our 
knowledge of physical bodies, that we acquire 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 11 

by experience only, and unlike our thoughts, 
which are but recollections of acquired knowl- 
edge, our feelings are innate. They differ in in- 
tensity in different men, and in the same man at 
different stages of life ; but all men, of all na- 
tions, possess the same feelings, and hence sym- 
pathize with each other's hopes, fears, joys, and 
sorrows ; yield to like motives, and pursue the 
same ends. 

The intuitiveness of our feelings prevents their 
change, and thereby secures, by a process re- 
markably simple, the eternal sameness of the hu- 
man character ; enabling us to comprehend the 
actions and motives of preceding generations, to 
profit by their experience, and to proceed on- 
ward with their improvements, to the limits, 
whatever they may be, of physical knowledge, 
imaginative creations, and verbal disquisition. 

To understand further the beneficence of the 
laws which regulate our feelings, see how admi- 
rably every feeling that is excited in us accords 
with the exciting event. Often, in our streets, 
you will see a boy run, in a threatening manner, 
towards a smaller boy. How is the small boy 
to act 1 He may be educated to act in various 



12 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

ways ; but, if he submits to the dictates of na- 
ture, he will run from the danger, in obedience 
to the feeling of fear, which thus prompts to the 
action best adapted to his safety. 

The aggressor may not, however, be thus foil- 
ed. He will overtake the fugitive. The new 
emergency excites a new feeling. Fear has 
performed its office, and has failed to preserve 
him. The danger is inevitable, and, to encoun- 
ter it successfully, requires courage, which is 
forthwith excited in him. Under its influence, 
he stands at bay, snatches up a stick or stone j 
while his excited voice, flashing eyes, and rigid 
features (all unpremeditatedly produced, and 
without his agency) give notice that he is not 
to be injured with impunity. 

The pursuer also is not unchanged. The feel- 
ing which meditated violence is more than half 
subdued by what he hears and sees. He will 
shrink from the contest if he can ; but if consist- 
ency, and pride, and shame demand a blow, he 
will strike it, but as propitiatingly as is compat- 
ible with the outrage. The blow, however, ex- 
cites new feelings in both belligerents. In the as- 
sailant it exhausts his remaining courage. In 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 13 

the assailed, it exhausts his remaining fear. He 
raises his arm for vengeance, he no longer hesi- 
tates ; but Kis antagonist is gone. He is fleeing 
with his utmost speed. Providence has termi- 
nated the contest by its own benevolent provis- 
ions, and without much injury to either party. 

The laws which regulate our feelings exercise 
their conservative powers with a strength which 
increases as the end to be obtained augments in 
its importance. The perpetuity, by succession, 
of man, is ensured by impulses which no artifi- 
cial obstacles can contravene, nor prudential mo- 
tive, nor the infinite eccentricities of fashion or 
opinion. The life, also, of every individual is 
fenced around with numerous guards. A man, 
how weak soever or simple, who is in danger of 
assassination, is endued by the danger with a 
vividness of apprehension, a strength of resist- 
ance, and a sagacity for escape, of which pre- 
viously no person possessed a conception. 

Nor are these his only security. The assassin 
enters on his crime with fear, which increases as 
the space diminishes between him and his vic- 
tim. His eyes imagine sights, his ears sounds. 
His very breathing becomes loud, and terrifies 
B 



14 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

him. His heart strikes forcibly his breast to 
alarm him. An infant's voice would drive him 
from his purpose. And let the deed "be consum- 
mated, despite obstacles which, like the flaming 
sword, turn every way to guard the tree of life, 
the next intent of Providence is punishment. 
With what hardihood soever the murderer may 
have meditated on his crime ; with what inge- 
nuity he may have provided for its execution ; 
with what plans for its concealment, or shrewd- 
ness for his escape, his victim, dead at his feet, 
frustrates them all. He experiences feelings 
which make him a stranger to himself, and 
strange to other men in all his words and ac- 
tions. Not content, like an innocent man, with 
being unsuspected of the murder, he desires to 
be deemed affirmatively innocent. To gain this 
unnecessary affirmance, which guilt alone desires, 
and which guilt of every grade is compelled, by 
accusing feelings, to desire, he asserts so many 
falsehoods, so busies himself with the murder, 
that he excites the suspicion which he is striving 
to avert. He is a man with only one idea — his 
crime. By it he interprets all he hears and 
sees ; with it he mingles all he utters and per- 
forms. He is monomaniac, and either by con- 
fession proclaims his guilt, or proclaims it by his 
conduct. 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 15* 

The laws which regulate our feelings exhibit 
further beneficence, where we seldom look for 
mercy. If you pass a dwelling-house at mid- 
night, the inmates all asleep, would you not 
arouse them if the building were on fire ? The 
more, imminent the danger, the louder would be 
your outcry. Even thus pain arouses us from 
sleep. The more urgent our danger, the more 
violent is pain. It is the cry for assistance of 
our perishing organization. If an internal in- 
flammation could exist without pain, it would 
kill before we are aware of danger. And note 
a further benevolence. When inflammation has 
consumed the part on which it was raging, the 
danger can no longer be arrested, and pain, now 
useless as a warning, ceases. 

Even death is beneficent. Full of vivacity 
and vigour, we leap and halloo to gratify our 
love of action. When weary, rest is pleasant 
When faint, we desire to lie prostrate. When 
drowsy, nothing is welcome but sleep ; and when 
diseased beyond cure, and exhausted beyond 
resuscitation, nothing is desirable but death. 
Chameleons assume the colour of the substance 
on which they stand, so a man's desires assimi- 
late to the condition of his animal organization. 



16 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

As activity is to the vigorous, as rest is to the 
weary, as sleep to the drowsy, so is death to the 
dying. When life can no longer be sustained, 
death becomes an animal want, and dying an 
animal gratification. No benevolence can ac- 
complish more. 

Equally beneficent are the laws which our 
thoughts obey. Innumerable as are our thoughts, 
we can contemplate only one at a time. What 
thought shall I contemplate on any given occa- 
sion ? It ought to be the one which is most im- 
portant to the occasion. And such is the law. 
I may place poison in a bottle. The action may 
not be thought of again for months or years; 
but, the moment I • see the bottle, and thus be- 
come in danger from its contents, thought will in- 
form me of the poison. Thus is remedied the 
limitation of thought. But the limitation is it- 
self a blessing. In this world of death, pecuni- 
ary reverses, unredressed injuries, evils in pros- 
pect, opportunities neglected — who possesses not 
a thought, whose presence clouds his gayety, and 
checks his activity ? Shall it be always present ? 
The wounded heart may desire to brood over it 
for ever ; but, the moment it arises, the moving 
mass of thoughts behind jostle it from view, and 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 17 

force us, in spite of sorrows, to contemplate, in 
turn, what is cheerful. 

And note how benevolently thoughts contrast 
with actions. With safety we handle loaded 
pistols, because our actions obey our will. For 
a like reason, we walk securely on the brink of 
a precipice. But our will cannot control our 
thoughts; hence, while I am walking near a 
precipice, willing to proceed onward, thought 
may suggest that my will should not be in- 
dulged ; that the attempt is foolhardy and de- 
structive. All the productions of art proceed 
from the subjection of our actions to our will ; 
from the unsubjection of our thoughts proceeds 
all the monitions of conscience and all the sug- 
gestions of genius. 

And note, further, how benevolently inanimate 
nature differs from both thoughts and actions. 
They take cognizance of moral consequences ; 
but a ship founders at sea, and the ocean in- 
gulfs it as readily when freighted with mission- 
aries as when loaded with convicts. If winds 
and waves were not inflexible in their obedience 
to unchangeable laws, navigation could not be a 
science ; and if timber and iron were not re- 
B2 



18 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

gardless of moral consequences, they would be 
unsuitable for the construction of ships. When 
a steamboat explodes, the destruction of life is 
often dreadful ; but if water regarded moral con- 
sequences, instead of expanding inflexibly under 
the operation of fixed laws, we could not em- 
ploy steam-power ; and if iron and copper would 
not soften, break, and melt, we could not con- 
vert it into machinery. 

Observe, also, how beneficially some parts of 
our own organization differ from other parts. If 
our heart moved only by an effort, like our 
hands, it would be as ill-adapted to the vital 
purposes it subserves, as self-moving hands would 
be ill-adapted to the purposes which they sub- 
serve. For us to know the action of our vital 
organs is not necessary, and tends often to hypo- 
chondria ; hence the blood within us continued 
to circulate for several thousand years without 
our knowing it ; but to know the action of our 
external organs is useful, and tends often to our 
safety : hence our feet cannot move without our 
cognizance, nor can they so noiselessly steal 
upon the privacy of our neighbour as to escape 
his detection. 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 19 

Having now shown that all the material world 
is governed by determinate laws, that the ani- 
mal and intellectual worlds obey determinate 
laws, and that all the laws are benevolent, I have 
but stated truths known to the experience of ev- 
ery person. I have adverted to them briefly, and 
merely for the purpose of introducing a kindred 
truth, which, though known, like the former, to 
experience, has been, less generally than the for- 
mer, subjected to popular investigation. I want 
to show that the moral world also is governed 
by determinate natural laws, and that they all 
promote the temporal good of man. 

You must not, however, understand me as 
maintaining the doctrine of the Optimists, that 
every event, how adverse soever, which happens 
to a man, is better for him than any other event 
that could happen. That the strength of tim- 
ber should be governed by laws which will not 
vary to save us from being precipitated into the 
room below, I have show 7 n to be a beneficent 
provision of Providence ; but I am yet to learn 
that our disregard of the laws of matter, and our 
consequent precipitation into the room below, is 
the best event that can happen. That steam 
should be indefinitely expansible by heat, and 



20 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

that iron and copper should be capable of being 
broken and melted, I have shown to be highly- 
beneficent laws of nature ; but I am yet to learn 
that a disregard of these laws, and the conse- 
quent explosion of a boiler, with the destruction 
of a multitude of human beings, is the best event 
that can happen. To admit such a conclusion, 
even in deference to the Author of nature, lest 
we might seem to deny his universal wisdom or 
benevolence, involves the incongruity that Prov- 
idence has created laws which may, with equal 
benefit, be either observed or violated. 

I can believe that highly beneficent purposes 
are subserved by such a structure of our bodies 
as renders them liable to destruction by frost, 
fire, and fever ; but I am yet to learn that an 
exposure of my body to these agents, and its 
consequent destruction, is the best event that can 
happen. I can believe that when a man's heart, 
lungs, or brain are so disorganized that they can 
no longer perform their essential functions, that 
death is as benevolent as it is inevitable ; but I 
am yet to learn that such a disorganization of 
his heart, lungs, or brain is the best event that 
can occur to him. I can see benevolence in the 
requisition, " that he who sheddeth man's blood, 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 21 

by man shall his blood be shed ;" but I cannot 
see that thus to bring upon one's self an igno- 
minious death is the best event that can happen. 

The world seems to have been constructed on 
a system of dilemma. If men are to enjoy the 
benefit of steam-power, water must be expansi- 
ble, and therefore explosive. If men are to 
enjoy the benefit of copper and iron in the con- 
struction of steam-boilers, copper and iron must 
be malleable, fusible, and frangible, and there- 
fore liable to collapse and burst. To enjoy the 
benefit without the evil involves a contradiction, 
and is therefore impossible. The evil is pro- 
duced by the qualities which produce the benefits. 

Whether Omnipotence could not have con- 
structed a world in which every event would 
have been an unalloyed good, is a question too 
profound to be discussed understandingly, and 
too idle to deserve discussion. But such is not 
the organization of the present world, nor is 
such an organization compatible with the mate- 
rials of which the present world is composed. 
No evil exists that is not an inevitable conse- 
quence of some more than counterbalancing ben- 
efit ; hence as little evil exists as is compatible 



22 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

with the benefits that we enjoy. The combusti- 
bility of our dwelling-houses, how dreadful so- 
ever may occasionally be its consequences, is an 
inevitable result of a property in wood, that con- 
tributes daily to the essential comforts of man- 
kind. Our flesh must be pervious to steel and 
liable to wounds, or a crushed and gangrened 
limb would be incapable of amputation, and the 
whole body would perish with it. Darkness and 
cold must be endured everywhere for a period, 
or a portion of the earth must suffer perpetual 
night and winter. 

Even death could not have.been averted with- 
out depriving man of the social benefits which 
result from the relation of husband and wife, 
parent and child, infancy and maturity ; for, if 
man were not mortal, the earth would long since 
have attained the extent of its habitable capaci- 
ty, and with the termination of increase would 
have terminated the relations which increase 
originates. The present inhabitants of the earth 
owe certainly their existence to death, which, on 
a principle of rotation, has made room for us, 
as we, in turn, shall be required to depart, after 
having seen out life's splendid show, and make 
room for others. This necessary rotation must 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 23 

ever thwart the utmost perfection of medical 
skill ; hence, when physicians are able, as by the 
introduction of vaccination, to shut some avenue 
through which death is accustomed to enter, 
some new disease, or the increased virulence of 
some old one, will, we are told, make a new 
avenue for the destroyer. 

The evils of life seem to me rather unavoida- 
ble consequences than immediate creations of 
Providence. Fire is an immediate creation, and 
of the most beneficial character ; but the con- 
flagration of a dwelling-house, with all its in- 
mates, is an attendant evil, that Providence may 
well be supposed to deplore rather than to have 
designed. Storms which wreck fleets, and tem- 
pests that inundate countries, may in like man- 
ner be only incidental evils of the fluidity of 
the air, its contraction by cold, and expansion 
by heat ; qualities which we know are essential 
to the beneficial purposes subserved by air. 

Incidental evils, as of a conflagration, may re- 
sult in some good. A lad, in leaping from the 
window of a burning house, received an injury, 
which, while it incapacitated him for manual la- 
bour, excited the benevolence of a nobleman, by 



24 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

whose aid he became distinguished and exten- 
sively useful. We need not, however, believe 
that the conflagration was designed for the end 
which thus occurred. Every event is, perhaps, 
susceptible of some improvement, as the most 
steril soil is susceptible of some melioration ; 
but morality enjoins that we shall not seek good 
by the commission of evil; and I see nothing to 
induce a belief that Providence is excepted from 
the exigency of the prohibition. 

About eighty years ago, the city of Lisbon 
was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, and for- 
ty thousand persons were ingulfed and killed. 
"Whether earthquakes are immediate creations, 
like fire, sea, and air, or secondary creations, like 
steam, I possess not information .enough to de- 
cide; but, if earthquakes are immediate crea- 
tions, and if storms, tempests, and hurricanes are, 
I feel faith enough in the benevolence of Deity 
to believe that they would not be created did 
they not subserve a purpose (though I know it 
not) sufficiently beneficial to more than counter- 
balance their injuriousness. But, in that case, 
the concentration of forty thousand persons on 
the site of an earthquake, with their consequent 
destruction, is not necessarily included within the 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 25 

intention of earthquakes, but is an unavoidable 
and undesirable incident of man's happy inabil- 
ity to look into futurity, and of his privilege to 
move over the earth, and establish his habitation 
where he pleases. 

The Judge of all the earth will doubtless ever 
do right ; but if my brother mistakes arsenic for 
Epsom salts, and thereby dies, I need not sup- 
pose that the event is not lamentable. No such 
event could happen if arsenic was stricken from 
existence, or if the human constitution was so 
modified as to make arsenic innoxious, or if hu- 
man action was made controllable by instinct 
instead of experience ; but I possess faith enough 
in Providence to believe that these changes 
w r ould be a greater evil than the occasional deaths 
from arsenic that the changes would obviate. 

The personal sacrifices and self-denials which 
our organization imposes on us seem the result 
of a like dilemma. If one man could pleasur- 
ably consume all the provisions of a ship, what 
would become of his fellow-passengers ? and if 
a man could profitably indulge unlimited selfish- 
ness, what would become of the young, the sick, 
the feeble, and the stranger 1 Nor could Provi^ 
C 



26 EVERY DEPARTMENT OE NATURE 

dence make us free agents, as to the extent of 
our sensual enjoyments, without causing our ex- 
cesses to inflict on us sufficient evils to restrain 
our excesses. 

A like principle is discoverable in our pas- 
sions. Anger, which gives vehemence to our 
thoughts, energy to our actions, vivacity to our 
imagination, .resolution to our judgment, and 
which flies to our assistance at the moment of 
need, could not be given to every human being 
without subjecting each to restraints on its em- 
ployment, and to evils when the restraints are 
disregarded. The vehemence which gives to 
anger its power of mischief, is the very quality 
that constitutes its usefulness. 

Vanity compensates for the personal insignifi- 
cance which results unavoidably to each from 
the equality of favours bestowed by Providence 
on all. How few books can be read with pleas- 
ure, how many cannot be read without disgust ; 
but, with such feelings towards them, who could 
have endured the labour by which alone each 
was slowly elaborated, painfully corrected, cop- 
ied, recopied, and recorrected. Vanity was the 
patronising friend who alone never tired, to 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 27 

whose ear every word was wisdom, and to whose 
hopes the volume was destined to instruct, de- 
light, and surprise a grateful world. 

When the London footman married the Lon- 
don chambermaid, and inquired the next day 
what the world thought of his match, how in- 
supportable would have been his servitude had 
he contemplated himself, and bride, and mar- 
riage with the contempt which has immortalized 
the anecdote. But not the lowly only need the 
ministrations of vanity. To all of us existence 
would be deprived of more than half of its en- 
joyments, were our words, thoughts, and actions 
as unimportant in the estimation of the actor, as 
they must be in the estimation of the rest of 
mankind. But Providence, in giving us this as- 
suasive principle, could not avoid subjecting us 
to the danger of occasionally being misled by 
its flatteries, and rendered ridiculous by its man- 
ifestations. 

Fear is a benevolent accompaniment of the 
natural defencelessness of man. With his com- 
parative slowness of motion, dulness of vision, 
hearing, and scent, he would, without fear, dis- 
regard the countless precautions which are es- 



28 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

sential to his condition, and become the victim 
of creation instead of the master. But Provi- 
dence, in giving us fear, could not avoid impo- 
sing on us both the duty of resisting its sugges- 
tions, and the evils of cowardice when we neg- 
lect such resistance. To fight valiantly is ac- 
cordingly made our most effectual protection in 
every battle, while flight is almost certain de- 
struction. If the indulgence of fear conduced 
to safety, the world would be controlled by vio- 
lence instead of justice. Now every yielding 
to wrong is an invitation to further aggression. 
To maintain his rights is not a man's duty only^ 
but on it is made to depend his safety ; hence 
fear becomes the essence of moral courage, 
which, without much paradox, may be resolved 
into nothing but a fear of the consequences of 
yielding to fear. 

This view, though brief, of the offices per- 
formed by our passions, may teach us that hu- 
man nature cannot be improved, as some persons 
suppose (and as some have attempted), by erad- 
icating from it any passion, appetite, or feeling. 
The imbecility of age results more from the de- 
cay of our passions, appetites, and feelings, than 
from decay of our physical and intellectual or- 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 29 

ganization. These seem but instruments of our 
passions, appetites, and feelings, and decay when 
those become extinct by age ; just as the leaves 
of a plant wither and fall as soon as the fruit is 
gathered ; the leaves seeming to be only subsid- 
iary agents to the fruit. 

The operations of men exhibit a dilemma sim- 
ilar to that which is apparent in the productions 
of nature. If you would enjoy rest, you must 
submit to fatigue. If you would excel other 
men in learning, you must excel them in study. 
If you would surpass them in any science, art, or 
profession, you must surpass them in laborious 
application. If you desire the pleasure of accu- 
mulated wealth, you must forego the gratifica- 
tion of expenditure. If you would live long, 
you must not live fast. If you desire the con- 
spicuousness of elevation, you must lose the con- 
cealment of obscurity. Nay, more, and worse, 
if you would not follow to the tomb your wife, 
parents, friends, and children, you must die, and 
let them follow you. If you desire long life, 
you must suffer decrepitude, imbecility, and all 
the other infirmities of extreme age. In all 
these cases, and similar without limit can be ac- 
cumulated, the dilemma is not more apparent 
C2 



30 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

than the blamelessness of Providence in the 
evils that we suffer. No avertable evil can be 
imputed to Providence ; and, what is still more 
remarkable, no sacrifice, not required by his or- 
ganization, and not useful to himself or fellow- 
men, that man can make of his time, life, prop- 
erty, or pleasures, is productive of anything but 
injury to him. The celibacy of our shaking 
Quakers, the mutilations which occurred in the 
early periods of Christianity, the painful pen- 
ances and seclusions which have been submitted 
to by men, all verify the truth of the above be- 
nevolent provision. To cast a handful of money 
into the ocean, or to bestow it in clothing the 
destitute, is equally a sacrifice of your property ; 
but only one of these actions is useful, and that 
is the only one which is productive of a resulting 
benefit to you. Contrast the temperance which 
is required by our organization with a fasting 
and abstinence that our organization requires 
not. The first recompenses you with health and 
vigour for your useful self-denial; the other 
punishes you with pain and debility for your use- 
less privations. Contrast the industry which is 
necessary to our comfortable sustenance with the 
interminable restlessness of avarice and ambi- 
tion; the first recompenses you with cheerful- 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 31 

ness, the other punishes you with solicitude. 
These examples are but the type of a principle 
which you will find to be general. The com- 
forts and enjoyments which are consistent with 
our organization, physical, social, mental, and 
moral, we can no more neglect with impunity, 
than we can infringe on the comforts of another 
man. A man is under the care of Providence 
even when he may be disposed to take no care 
of himself. 

But, while I am endeavouring to show that 
the world is constituted on a system which pro- 
duces the greatest possible good, with the least 
possible evil, you must not class me with another 
sect of philosophers, who maintain the above 
doctrines, and infer from them that rewards and 
punishments in a future life are not to be ex- 
pected. The political government of nations is 
conducive of temporal benefits to persons who 
faithfully obey the laws, and of temporal inju- 
ries to persons who disobey them ; still, even hu- 
man governments superadd often what in prin- 
ciple is analogous to future rewards and punish- 
ments, if we may presume to compare human 
rewards with divine, and finitude with infinity. 
When Nelson was commencing the battle of 



32 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

Cape St. Vincent, he exclaimed, " Westminster 
Abbey or victory/' The after-life immortality 
of Westminster Abbey is a reward which Great 
Britain sagaciously superadds to the regular 
temporal benefits that, during life, compensate 
adequately the performance of military duties. 

With human governments, however, posthu- 
mous rewards are merely a means to influence 
our conduct ; but the posthumous rewards of 
Deity may be a retribution for the evils which 
are inseparable from the dilemma on which the 
world is constructed, or the rewards may possess 
some higher and even inscrutable object. To 
man the question is practically unimportant, 
whether future rewards and punishments are a 
means to induce him to act well, or an end to be 
obtained by acting well. In both alternatives 
he possesses the same hopes from good conduct 
and the same fears from bad. But if temporal 
good conduct, with its consequent temporal hap- 
piness, be the object for which eternal rewards 
and punishments are designed, we cannot fail 
from seeing in the plan infinite disinterestedness, 
nor can we fail from seeing in it a great incon- 
gruity ; for, while it makes man's happiness the 
sole object of God's government, it subordinates 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 33 

man's eternal happiness to his temporal happi- 
ness ; the greater good to the less. This cannot 
well be conceived. Man's eternal happiness is 
probably the object of God's government, though 
events are so benevolently constituted that the 
conduct which will ensure us eternal happiness is 
more conducive than any other conduct to our 
temporal happiness also. 

The doctrine to which I have just adverted de- 
rives its chief interest from an impression* that, 
if the temporal happiness of man be the object 
of God's government, nothing that conflicts with 
man's temporal happiness can be obligatory in 
either morals or religion. With human legisla- 
tors the temporal interest of man constitutes, 
we know, the only justifiable principle of legis- 
lation ; and when this principle is violated, re- 
bellion may become the duty of the oppressed. 
But when an individual deems the principle vi- 
olated, he ought to reflect that he may be mista- 
ken, and that the contrary opinion of the legisla- 
tors (as evinced by their enactment of the law) is 
more likely to be correct than the opinion of any 
single individual. Now, by the same reasoning, 
if we even admit that man's temporal good is a 
correct test of either the truth or expediency of 



34 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE 

any tenet of revealed morality or religion, and, 
by virtue of the admission, reject any such tenet, 
we commit an arrogance as regards the law- 
maker equal at least to the man who denounces 
a human law ; with the additional arrogance of 
deciding positively that the whole object of rev- 
elation is fathomed by our conjectures. 

I am, however, wandering into theology, to 
discuss which I am not prepared by education ; 
nor is the discussion appropriate to the place, or 
necessary to my subject. My design is limited 
to an investigation of the natural laws by which 
the moral world is governed. We occasionally 
find men who suffer such successions of evil as 
to strikingly designate them unfortunate. If a 
person absconds, he is among the debtors of 
these unfortunate men. They are more liable 
than others to suffer losses by fire, which happen 
when a policy of insurance is unrenewed. They 
are lamed by fractious horses, and generally the 
produce of their farms happens to be of the kind 
which is least in request. They seem fated to 
be the dupes of knaves and the victims of treach- 
erous friends. Their children will be poisoned 
with arsenic that was prepared for rats ; their 
families with wild parsnip, that was mistaken 



OBEYS DETERMINATE LAWS. 35 

for horseradish. If, however, we could trace 
the evils to their sources of any one of these 
men, we should discover that the laws of neither 
matter nor Providence were varied to afflict him 
peculiarly. His physical misfortunes arise from 
a disregard of the laws which govern physical 
events ; his moral misfortunes from a disregard 
(as I may be able to show) of the law T s which 
govern moral events. He may perform enough 
of everything to seem to have performed his 
duty, but not in a manner or degree that ensures 
success. He may detail a hundred reasons w r hy 
his misfortunes should not have occurred; but 
his deficiencies, if known, would show a hun- 
dred reasons why his misfortunes were inevitable. 

In like manner, you will occasionally find men 
who enjoy such successions of advantages as to 
strikingly designate them fortunate. Their debt- 
ors all happen to prove solvent, their policies of 
insurance happen to have been duly renewed, 
and at solvent offices ; their horses happen to be 
gentle, their produce happens to be of the kind 
which is in repute, and harvested in good con- 
dition. They are neither the dupes of knaves, 
nor are their friends treacherous. They pass 
through life without litigation or insult Their 



36 EVERY DEPARTMENT OF NATURE, ETC. 

waves happen to be affectionate, their children 
dutiful, their firesides the resort of cheerfulness 
and contentment. If, also, we could trace these 
blessings to their sources, we should discover 
that they are dispensed from no special partiality 
of Providence, but result naturally from a due 
regard to the laws which regulate moral events, 
and which laws I propose to investigate and ex- 
hibit. The investigation will, I hope, be useful. 
It certainly shall be brief; but, as I have already 
occupied as much of your attention as can be 
borne without weariness, I shall postpone the 
farther prosecution of my task to some future 
evening. 



LECTURE H. 

THE CONDUCT WHICH RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 

When some outbreak of ferocity consigns a 
man to the scaffold, we are accustomed to esti- 
mate the perpetrator as an exception from human 
nature, while we ought to estimate him as a de- 
monstrator of the malignancy and excitability 
of human passions ; just as ice is no exception 
from the nature of water, but one of the states 
which belongs to water. 

By a like mistake, the extent of human self- 
ishness we fail to learn from the career of Na- 
poleon ; hence we see, not so clearly as we ought, 
that some conservative aid of Providence must 
exist, or beings with a selfishness as dilatable as 
Napoleon's, and a ferocity as excitable as the 
murderer's, could not live in peaceful communion, 
and exhibit such disinterestedness, meekness, and 
benevolence as society everywhere exhibits. We 
are like children, who, when habituated to sobri- 
ety, estimate a drunken man as a prodigy instead 
of an epitome of human frailty. 
D 



38 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

If the elements which compose society are 
thus discordant, the position alone seems to prove 
that moral events obey determinate laws, and 
that the laws promote the temporal good of man. 
Indeed, in a menagerie, when we pass through 
an assemblage of lions, tigers, wolves, and leop- 
ards, our security is but little more obviously the 
result of physical restraints on the animals, than 
our security in society is the result of moral re- 
straints on men. 

But, without claiming this proof, our language 
is full of proverbs, such as " Honesty is the best 
policy," " Liars should possess good memories," 
which are founded on a known subjection of moral 
events to determinate laws ; and, practically, men 
acknowledge continually some such subjection. 
"When, however, without toil, a man can obtain 
the fruits of another man's labours, honesty is 
not obviously his best policy. Our prisons are 
full of experimenters on this very point. Such 
persons, and those who perish by the execution- 
er, subserve thereby a highly useful purpose ; for 
self-interest, w T hich now keeps the world honest, 
would make it dishonest were dishonesty seen 
to be advantageous; society would be like a 
stranded ship on an inhospitable shore, where 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 39 

every man is snatching from the wreck whatever 
he can bear away. 

We are apt to attribute the prejudicialness of 
dishonesty to human legislation ; but Providence 
has not confided so conservative a result to the 
contingency of human means. Every act which 
is prejudicial to society is a violation of the in- 
tentions of Nature ; and by a precision with 
w'hich Deity alone adapts his means to his ends, 
the more prejudicial the offence is to society, the 
more severe is the evil which attends its perpe- 
tration. In homicide, detection is almost inevi- 
table, and by means furnished by Providence 
alone. A few years ago a man committed a 
murder, that, for the singularity of its perpetra- 
tion and the trivialness of its inducements, is be- 
come a new crime, which bears the name of its 
bad inventor, Burke. His victim was a mendi- 
cant idiot, who apparently would be neither 
missed nor regretted ; but Nature has so arranged 
the dependences, on each other, of mankind, 
that no individual is so solitary but his disap- 
pearance must be remarked by many, and de- 
plored by some. Burke's victim was accordingly 
missed. Some recollected that he had been last 
seen at the house of Burke. There he w T as nat- 



40 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

urally inquired for. The inquiry elicited the 
natural trepidations of guilt, and these, as nat- 
urally, lead to the detection of the crime. 

" Dead men tell no tales" is said to be a mur- 
derer's consolation ; but a dead body will, in a 
few days, reveal itself to a sense that is as wake- 
ful as hearing. If sunk in a river, Nature will 
soon release it from its weights, and drift it into 
notice. The earth will not cover it without ex- 
hibiting that something lies beneath; nor will 
fire consume it without leaving a sufficiency to 
fulfil the detecting purposes of Providence. And 
Providence detects not the crime only, but the 
criminal. He cannot separate himself from the 
incidents which pertain to his crime, and the 
smallest incident that is discovered reveals the 
whole, by processes of association which our 
thoughts reveal intuitively ; just as we discover 
the presence of a rat by the slightest rasping of 
his teeth. 

Whoever commits a crime for the first time, 
commits it against greater moral obstacles than 
he will encounter in any repetition of the crime ; 
hence the crime will be repeated. Increased 
boldness and diminished repugnance augment 



I 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 41 

by every repetition of crime ; and, from these 
premises, ultimate detection is as demonstrable 
as the eventual contact of two interminable lines 
that converge ; nor can increased boldness and 
diminished repugnance be prevented by the per- 
petrator of crime, any more than a sexton can 
avoid the heartlessness with which he eventually 
digs graves. The above process is seldom ne- 
cessary to the detection of a homicide, for he is 
usually detected in his first offence ; but as you 
recede in the degree of offences, the process be- 
comes proportion ably active. The detection of a 
thief for his first theft may be rare, from the 
great caution with which he will perpetrate it ; 
but for him to desist from depredation, and there- 
by escape ultimate detection, happens seldom. 

The restraining agency of Providence ends 
not with detection. An intuitive impulse makes 
every man pursue a fugitive criminal, and ac- 
cuse him when captured ; and though we usu- 
ally portray only the jail and scaffold when we 
display the consequence of crime, they are not 
its only punishment, nor its severest. Every 
sailor is nearly as much a prisoner for life as a 
penitentiary convict, and subject to greater pri- 
vations and perils ; while every patriot who dies 
D2 



42 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

in battle, nay, every man who dies in his bed, 
suffers usually more physical agony than a felon, 
who struggles only momentarily on a scaffold. 
The chief poignancy of jails and scaffolds re- 
sults from a providential consciousness of ill de- 
sert ; hence, if we give to men the merit of jails 
and scaffolds, we must give to Providence nearly 
all their restraining efficacy. We may behold 
in this a beautiful provision also against tyran- 
ny, which may unjustly imprison, and even kill ; 
but the victim, divested of the consciousness of 
ill desert, will rejoice, rather than lament, that he 
is thought w T orthy to suffer in a cause that he 
deems virtuous. 

But legal punishments are themselves refera- 
ble to Providence. They result from feelings 
which induce every individual to resist injury 
when offered to himself, and to dislike it when 
offered to another. We assume, however, for 
legal punishments a restraining efficacy propor- 
tioned to the severity of the punishment ; a mis- 
take which often adds unnecessary severity to 
penal codes, and originates in a misapprehension 
of the mode in which punishments are effective. 
Men will commit suicide on detection of offences 
whose legal punishment is only a short imprison- 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 43 

ment, showing conclusively that detection alone 
is a severe punishment. Nearly all imprison- 
ments of a day or a week must derive their prin- 
cipal poignancy from detection, of which im- 
prisonment is the authoritative verification, and 
mainly efficacious, in the above cases, as a verifi- 
cation. I admit that some criminals are regard- 
less of detection, except as it leads to legal pun- 
ishment ; which, also, they will regard but light- 
ly. Yet a time existed when even to them legal 
punishment was a less evil than detection. Its 
force on them has been exhausted. They stand 
in relation to it, as a naked corpse stands in re- 
lation to the decencies which used to crimson its 
now regardless cheeks. Nay, Nature exercises 
a punitory process which precedes detection, and 
is superior to both it and legal punishment ; for 
not unfrequently great criminals have voluntarily 
surrendered themselves to justice, as a less evil 
than the eternal apprehension of such a catas- 
trophe. 

In England, the law endeavours to reach the 
offence of suicide through the posterity of the 
offender, by debarring them from his property ; 
and through his imagination, by refusing to his 
burial the solemnities of religion, mutilating his 



44 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

body, and interring it in a highway. Providence 
acts on the offence with an efficacy that strongly 
exhibits the comparative impotence of legal re- 
straints ; for we cannot be driven to suicide by 
all the inflictions, even while alive, that the law 
threatens us with after death, as a determent 
against suicide. 

But the law takes cognizance of only a por- 
tion of the actions which are injurious to society, 
while Nature takes cognizance of all, and ap- 
plies efficient restraints to all. In New-York, 
when yellow fever prevails, the city authorities 
fence up the infected streets, that all persons may 
be warned against passing through them. In 
like manner, when experience has discovered 
that any practice is injurious, the practice is stig- 
matized as a vice. When any conduct w r ill en- 
gender vices, it is stigmatized as an immorality. 
"We thus endeavour to fence up such practices 
and conduct, that unwary persons may be ad- 
monished not to use them ; for usually the prac- 
tices themselves give as little warning of danger 
to an inexperienced observer as the infected 
streets of a city. From this absence of apparent 
danger, many persons believe that vice and im- 
morality are terms established by austere reli- 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 45 

gionists from mere prejudice or caprice; while 
other persons admit the injuriousness of vice and 
immorality, but attribute it to special interfe- 
rences of Providence or conventional interfe- 
rences of men. The injuriousness is, however, as 
much the established order of Nature, as the in- 
juriousness of theft, the infectiousness of small- 
pox, or the deleteriousness of arsenic. Hurtful- 
ness is the essence of vice and immorality. A 
harmless vice or immorality would be as much a 
solecism as a healthful disease, a pleasurable 
pain, or a beneficial crime. The science of mo- 
rality is nothing but a knowledge of the natural 
consequences which certain actions produce, just 
as the science of medicine is a knowledge of the 
natural effects which certain drugs produce. 

A man may say that he will acquiesce in the 
interdict of any practice as vicious or immoral 
when its hurtfulness shall be proved by his own 
experience. But such a determination is as un- 
wise as to require personal experience previous- 
ly to a belief in the contagiousness of smallpox 
or the deleteriousness of arsenic. The concur- 
rent testimony of public opinion is on all sub- 
jects so authoritative, that, instead of doubting 
its testimony, a man should rather doubt the cor- 



46 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

rectness of his own experience when it conflicts 
with public opinion. Sir Walter Scott says that 
no man is so great a fool as he who thinks him- 
self wiser than other men. Besides, by attend- 
ing to what is passing around us, we shall dis- 
cover so many examples of evil from the viola- 
tion of the accredited code of morals, as to make 
a disregard of any article of the code madly pre- 
sumptuous. 

In one of the monasteries of Spain, a found- 
ling had been educated, who exhibited so much 
piety, learning, and eloquence, that, while yet 
young, he was elevated to be head of the estab- 
lishment. The chapel in which he officiated was 
thronged with the population of Madrid. Amid 
his constant attendants was a female, who, led 
too far by what she deemed religious zeal, 
adopted the habiliments of a man to obtain a 
personal conference with the monk, whose aus- 
terity precluded her admission as a female. De- 
ceived by her stratagem, the recluse became 
pleased with her piety, till, continued intercourse 
relaxing the precautions with which she con- 
cealed her sex, an unguarded moment revealed 
it. All the prejudices of his education were in- 
dignant at her imposition, and all his piety was 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 47 

outraged. She had incurred the severest penal- 
ties of the Inquisition, and he resolved to subject 
her to its rigours. Pity plead for her; youth 
plead for her ; perhaps Nature plead for her, 
since eventually she proved to be his sister. Her 
crime, also, was only an excess of zeal, and, pos- 
sibly, of too much admiration of his talents. He 
commuted the punishment into banishment from 
the walls which she had desecrated, and perpet- 
ual exclusion from his presence. 

The sentence was better, probably, than the 
rigours of monastic law. It was at least merci- 
ful, and thus far the monk was pursuing the safe 
road of duty. We occasionally meet in our 
streets some blind man, who, by the aid of a 
stick, is groping his onward way. He may not 
know definitely where his steps will lead him ; 
but, while he keeps in a regular thoroughfare, 
he is in no danger of falling over a precipice, 
because the path in which he is walking was de- 
signed for travel. In all matters which relate to 
futurity, every person is like the blind man. 
We know not what the next moment may bring 
forth ; but, while we are acting virtuously, we 
are in a path which was designed for travel, and 
we may be sure it will lead us into no pitfall. 



48 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

If we desert the path of virtue, we are like a 
blind man who deserts the highway. He is 
moving over ground which was not designed for 
travel, and he has no guarantee that the next 
step will not plunge him into an abyss ; and 
thus eventually fared the monk. The detected 
intruder was contrite, and thankful for the lenity 
with which she had been treated. She forth- 
with prepared to depart, but still she lingered. 
He resolved to enforce her departure, but still he 
delayed. The delay was a desertion of the safe 
road of duty; a wandering therefrom into a 
pathless forest. Still his feet passed onward, 
with purity in his ultimate intentions ; but so nat- 
urally dangerous is an immoral position, that he, 
the boast of his order, the self-sufficient recluse, 
the pride of Madrid, the hope of the church, 
fell from indiscretion to immorality, from immo- 
rality to vice, from vice to crime, from crime, 
through all its rapid gradations, to murder, and 
died upon the rack. 

Whether this narrative be true or fictitious is 
immaterial, for we discover in it an order in 
which events seem naturally catenated. We 
have all seen a skein of thread while under the 
process of being unwound. While you unwind 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 49 

in the order of the thread's involutions, the pro- 
cess is easy and the result safe ; but if you de- 
sert in the slightest degree the order of the 
thread's involvement, you produce a tangle which 
becomes inextricable and destructive if you pro- 
ceed in your error. The events of life also are cat- 
enated in a regular order, from which every vice 
and immorality is a deviation; and no sagacity 
can foresee the tangle and destruction thai you 
may produce in your affairs by the slighest vice 
or immorality. In this aspect of the nature of 
vice and immorality, the term slight is inappro- 
priate to them ; for surely nothing should be 
deemed slight whose result may be destructive. 

I lately accompanied a party of pleasure to 
Trenton Falls. We overtook another party who 
were proceeding to the same destination. As 
both parties intended to lodge at the falls over 
night, we desired to arrive first, that we might 
obtain the choice of bedrooms. This was nei- 
ther loving our neighbour as ourselves, nor doing 
as we should wish to be done by. We deemed, 
however, a circumvention of our rivals but a 
slight immorality, and our coachman promised 
to accomplish it. Accordingly, at the next rest- 
ing-place, he exerted himself to start suddenly 
E 



50 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

in advance of the adverse carriage \ and, for this 
purpose, neglected to tie his horses while he 
went to draw water for them from the well. 
The other coachman saw the hurry and its ob- 
ject; and, resolving to frustrate both, sprang 
upon his box, and, snapping his whip, moved 
onward. At the sound of the whip our horses 
started also. Had they ran forward, we must 
have been dashed to pieces, for a very steep de- 
scent was in front of us ; but, fortunately, they 
turned towards home, and, making a very short 
curve, gently overturned the carriage, only in- 
flicting on us some scratches, slight contusions, 
and about an hour's delay. 

To leave horses without tying them is con- 
nected, with so direct an evil, that experience en- 
ables us to apprehend the precise danger which 
we hazard by the negligence; but when, in 
the above adventure, we acted selfishly towards 
our neighbours, the precise danger which we 
hazarded no experience could enable us to ap- 
prehend. This distinction is characteristic of 
every act that is vicious or immoral. The gi- 
gantic defalcations which our government ex- 
perienced lately in some of its pecuniary trusts 
were unforeseen results by even the defaulters 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 51 

themselves. They premeditated no more than 
the unauthorized employment, for a short period, 
of some small amount of the government funds. 
To extricate from danger the funds that had been 
thus venially abstracted, the parties were, in a 
manner, compelled to take more, and speculate 
more desperately. To conceal what unexpectedly 
became lost, they were forced to falsify accounts 
and commit perjuries ; and, when an exposure 
became inevitable, they were compelled to the 
last step in their career of guilt, to abscond, and 
carry with them, for their support, all the remain- 
ing funds in their possession. 

The Monument in London is a slender stone 
pillar, 200 feet high, and I once saw a female 
on the top of it. The sight astonished me, for 
I saw no means by which the ascent could be 
gained. Investigation, however, showed me an 
internal staircase of 345 steps. An analogous 
astonishment is experienced when we hear of 
some great crime. The criminal seems to have 
nothing in common with ordinary men, for we 
see not the 345 preliminary steps by which he 
attained his bad eminence in guilt. Could we 
trace his guilt from the petty immoralities in 
which it probably originated, we should learn 



52 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

that he differs from other men less than we ex- 
pected ; and that, if we would avoid the possibil- 
ity of his fate, we must avoid, not his crimes, of 
which we are at present in no danger, but the 
commission of every immorality ; for the slight- 
est deviation from rectitude may terminate in a 
catastrophe as bad as his. .. • 

As we are unable to foresee the precise evil 
which w T ill result to us from an immoral or vi- 
cious act, and as, occasionally, no direct evil does 
result, most men are less vigilant in obeying the 
laws of morality than in obeying the rules of 
physical caution in tying their horses. The def- 
erence thus practically accorded to physical 
laws, beyond what we accord to moral laws, 
may be due to the superior definiteness of phys- 
ical results ; but, on the other hand, the very 
impossibility of foreseeing the precise evils we 
may entail on ourselves by a vicious or immoral 
act, may cause us to doubt whether committing 
an immorality is not a greater danger than mere- 
ly omitting som'e precaution, by which we only 
may bring on ourselves a definite physical evil. 

To revel complacently on vice in our thoughts 
is denounced as an immorality ; but certainly, if 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 53 

vice can be innoxious in any shape, this would 
seem to be the instance ; yet a celebrated French 
author, who well knew the tendency of our na- 
ture in this particular, prefaced a pernicious 
book which he was publishing with the precau- 
tionary prescription, "Any female who reads this 
book is ruined." I will not affirm that the 
prophecy would be confirmed, for a person may 
read to condemn as well as to approve ; but a 
female who should read the book, and receive 
delight in the contemplation of it, would, I doubt 
not, reap in some way the bad fruits of her im- 
moral contemplations. Such results are a part 
of our nature, and they enable us to see the pro- 
found knowledge which lies at the foundation of 
our code of morals, and the presumption of dis- 
regarding the injunctions of morality when we 
happen to be unable to discover a sufficient rea- 
son for the injunction. Our feelings influence 
our actions as powerfully as" waves influence a 
ship ; and our thoughts excite our feelings as 
the winds excite the waves. We read in Ken- 
llworth of the undeserved afflictions of the 
Countess of Leicester. We know the whole is 
a fiction, and yet the thoughts which we read 
will excite in us sorrow, hope, and fear in the 
most painful degree. 

E2 



54 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

Morality forbids even the semblance of evil 
actions. This also seems an unnecessary aus- 
terity ; yet, like the former, it is founded in na- 
ture, and recognised by men in various observ- 
ances. Were a sentinel on duty to be discov- 
ered at an important military position with his 
eyes closed and his head reclined, he would be 
deemed guilty of a great military offence. Nor 
could he exculpate himself by proving that he 
was neither asleep nor intending to sleep ; for 
we are so constituted that to shut the eyes and 
recline the head will usually produce sleep, de- 
spite our best determinations to continue awake. 
Nay, if the sentinel could resist sleep, his con- 
duct would be culpable, because his example 
might induce other sentinels to commit the same 
actions, and they might not possess the same 
ability to resist sleep. 

A boy who is amusing himself by impaling a 
butterfly (no uncommon amusement) may natu- 
rally exclaim, on being told that his amusement 
is immoral, that he can see no harm in it, and 
that the morality spoken • of is a very captious 
limitation of juvenile sports. Still, so well does 
experience justify the canon of morality against 
cruelty, that, by our laws and the laws of Eng- 






RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 55 

land, cruelty is punishable by indictment when 
the propensity shows itself in any unnecessary 
infliction on even the brute creation ; and this 
not in mercy to the brute (though that would 
seem a good motive), but to prevent the forma- 
tion of habits of cruelty towards man. Possibly 
Providence, in its larger benevolence, reverses the 
rule, and, for the mere happiness and protection 
of inferior beings, has so organized man that he 
cannot be cruel to the meanest insect without so 
endangering other men as to compel them to re- 
press the cruelty. 

And note here a beautiful discrimination of 
both morality and Providence. If for scientific 
information I impale a butterfly, I infringe no 
canon of morality, nor is a habit of cruelty con- 
sequent on such an action. The motive consti- 
tutes the moral quality of an action, and the mo- 
tive alone operates on the disposition of the ac- 
tor. A surgeon exercised daily in amputations 
w r ill be less timid of blood than other men, but 
he may possess as little cruelty as the tenderest 
mother who ministers to the wounds. 

I have spoken of impaling a butterfly, because 
Hogarth, in his delineation of the progress of 



56 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

cruelty, commences with a picture which repre- 
sents a boy thus employed. In a succeeding pic- 
ture, the boy, advanced in stature, is burning with 
a heated knitting-needle the eye of a dove. At 
a further age he is extinguishing the candle and 
overturning the wheelbarrow of a poor woman 
who is selling apples. After various pictures, 
which exhibit advances in cruelty with advances 
in age, he is, in manhood, seen on a gallows, 
where he is to perish for the perpetration of 
murder. Like a young lion, petty cruelty may 
be used as a plaything; but, ere we become 
aware of the change, the plaything acquires the 
mortal energies of its maturity. 

Immorality and. vice are additionally danger- 
ous, by reason of the apparent security with 
which they may be practised. In gambling, the 
chance of winning must be equal to the chance 
of losing ; hence, in a course of play, a man's 
winnings will ostensibly equal his losses. In in- 
temperance, the purchase-money of drinks is tri- 
fling ; and during ebriety, a man may ostensibly 
abstain from negotiations that can impair his 
property, and from personal exposures that will 
impair his reputation. These positions argument 
may find difficulty in controverting ; but experi- 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 57 

ence, the last argument of wisdom, proves that 
the results of gambling and ebriety are pecuni- 
ary ruin, loss of reputation, remorse, rage, and 
suicide. 

Even after we attain a sufficient acquaintance 
with the world to learn the inevitable destruc- 
tiveness of vice and immorality on individuals 
generally, nothing seems more easy than to avoid 
such results by our own greater prudence. Why 
may not a man play while he finds himself a 
winner, and cease when he finds fortune desert- 
ing him ? Why may not he drink till he is on 
the verge of intoxication, and retreat with his 
judgment and reputation unimpaired ? The po- 
sitions are impracticable, by reason of the sub- 
jection of our actions to our feelings. The full 
stomach rejects the honeycomb, but hunger com- 
pels us to eat ; so, while we are neither thirsty 
nor stimulated, we can desist from drink or dice ; 
but, when thirst and excitement are present, we 
are unable to desist. 

The prohibitions of morality are founded on 
human nature ; and as the poison that kills one 
man will kill another, how much soever he may, 
in the pride of health, deem himself privileged 



58 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

against disease, so the vicious practices which 
lead one man to ruin will ruin another, how 
much soever vanity may induce him to deem 
himself secure against folly and imprudence. 

As a general rule, the tendency of every vice 
is to defeat the good which it seemingly ensures. 
Gambling leads to ruin, while it promises wealth ; 
intemperance to pain, while it promises pleasure ; 
laziness to trouble, while it promises ease. A 
merchant may obtain a customer by misrepre- 
senting his merchandise ; a lawyer a client by 
exciting false hopes ; a niggard save expenses 
by inhospitality ; a miser money by withholding 
contributions to society ; but such practices are 
like a false move in the game of chess : it may 
capture a castle or a queen, but, by the constitu- 
tion of the game, it must result in defeat. 

Providence deters us from injurious conduct by 
provisions which operate on us like the bars that 
a careful parent will place before the windows 
of a nursery or an open fireplace. Among these 
provisions is a disapprobation, which arises in us 
spontaneously when we see vice and immorality 
practised by other persons, and after reflection 
when we have practised them ourselves. To ren- 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 59 

der effectual the disapprobation of our fellow- 
men, we are endued with a love of approbation, 
which may be seen in even the poor wretch on the 
scaffold, who suppresses his agonies that he may 
propitiate by his bravery and decorum the crowd 
whom he knows not, and w T ho, in another mo- 
ment, are no longer to know him. A conscious 
loss of the regard of our fellow-men is intolera- 
ble, and sends, prematurely, many to the grave 
by what is figuratively termed a broken heart. 

That this powerful preventive may not be 
counteracted, events are- so catenated, and the 
human understanding is so constituted, that no 
vice or immorality can escape detection. We 
are enabled, from merely meeting a man at mid- 
night in an obscure street, to ascertain much in 
relation to him beyond what we actually see ; 
just as naturalists, by looking at a bone, can as- 
certain the nature of the animal to which it be- 
longed. Nor can we frame any falsehood by 
which our bad actions can be beneficially col- 
oured. The pupils of Jussieu fabricated a ve- 
getable, by combining the stem of a flower with 
the leaves and buds of other flowers. They pre- 
sented it to him as a newly-discovered plant ; but 
he immediately discovered the imposition, for it 



60 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

exhibited combinations of a kind which Nature 
never produces. Who can counterfeit even a 
bank-note that will escape the scrutiny of a prac- 
tised observer ? A lie is therefore usually known 
as soon as uttered, but is sure of subsequent de- 
tection by the absence of congruous accompani- 
ments; for every action bears a relation to. a 
whole series of other actions. To supply these, 
we must lie again ; hence " one lie occasions 
many." But, if one can rarely be concealed, 
the more we utter (and more must be uttered to 
support the first), the more inevitable is detec- 
tion. And not our flagrant actions only are thus 
discoverable to our fellow-men, but all our- ac- 
tions, and the general tenour of even our thoughts. 

And, after providing thus for the detection of 
our secrets, Providence has provided for their 
publication. Men are so nearly equal in their 
knowledge, that to be acquainted with an oc- 
currence which is unknown to others occasions a 
momentary superiority. But, to manifest this su- 
periority, we must impart our knowledge, and, 
accordingly, we are anxious to impart it, lest some 
more active relator shall, anticipate us. The se- 
crecy of a matter ensures, therefore, its diffusion, 
by a process which is designed for such a pur- 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 61 

pose as evidently as the down which wings the 
seed of a thistle is designed to diffuse thistles. 

And Providence deserts not the seed after it 
is scattered, nor a man's vices after they are pub- 
lished. By a species of animal magnetism, we 
soon become conscious when our character is im- 
paired, and our love of approbation afflicts us ac- 
cordingly. Nor is the injury to our character 
limited to the offence that has been disclosed. 
If you discover in a field an animal eating grass 
and another eating flesh, you know, without fur- 
ther information, that the animals differ in the 
shape of their teeth, that their stomachs differ, 
their digestive organization, their passions, and 
their habits generally. So, when you ascertain 
that a man has committed any vice or immoral- 
ity, you immediately attribute to him all the 
concomitant vices and immoralities that are usu- 
ally associated with the one of which he is con- 
victed. When you see a man in a bar-room with 
a tumbler in his hand, and another man in an 
office with a pen in his hand, you estimate the 
difference between them by the two entirely dif- 
ferent sets of habits which are indicated by the 
actions which you see. 

F 



62 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

This mode of judging is an operation of na- 
ture, and it makes all our actions important, es- 
pecially at the commencement of manhood. A 
young man who saunters through our streets, be- 
cause he possesses at the moment no occupation, 
is gaining a character which is to prevent his 
ever obtaining any occupation. All who see his 
idleness will estimate him by the vices and evils 
which are usually associated with idleness. A 
young man, also, w T ho discharges negligently his 
small employments, by reason, perhaps, of his 
deeming them small, will never be made lord 
over many employments. No person who sees 
his negligence will risk large trusts with him 
who demonstrates that he is unworthy of small 
ones. We seldom know many facts concerning 
any man, and necessarily fewer of a young man 
than an old ; still each of us can give the char- 
acter of our most casual acquaintances. We 
decide that one equivocates, another is treacher- 
ous, another quarrelsome, another studious ; and 
these assertions, on which the destiny of a whole 
life may hinge, will be founded on only one or 
more incidents, which the actor himself deemed 
probably very unimportant. 

You must not attribute to me the doctrine 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 63 

that a single act of crime, vice, or immorality 
will destroy a man's character, property, health, 
or happiness. We, however, shrink from the' 
first step in vice as intuitively as the domestic 
hen from the first sight of a hawk. After this 
harrier is passed, the progress in vice is so easy, 
that a proverb designates the first step as the 
only one which costs a struggle. Nor is a repe- 
tition, should it even degenerate into a habit, the 
only evil which may result from a single act of 
vice. If a man will gamble, he must take with 
it several other vices which are naturally associ- 
ated with gambling. If he will be idle, he must 
take with it the concomitants which have gained 
for idleness the title of mother of all vices. If 
he will lie, he must take with it cowardice, 
meanness, and treachery. A man can no more 
form a character that shall deviate from the or- 
dinary associations of moral qualities, than he 
can form an animal that shall possess the horns 
and legs of an ox, without the head, body, and 
tail of an ox. 

The above principle is recognised by our ju- 
risprudence. If a single act of gross profligacy 
can be alleged against a female witness, it will 
nullify her testimony, though her vice may pos- 



64 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

sess no direct relation to falsehood and perjury. 
When a man is accused of theft, and he can pro- 
duce a recommendation for industry, sobriety, 
and quietness, the qualities are so seldom associ- 
ated with theft, that he cannot be convicted by 
any ordinary proof of guilt. 

When a painter places before him a clean 
piece of canvass, he may paint thereon a lion, 
an eagle, or an ox ; but, the moment he has por- 
trayed the horns of an ox, he can no longer 
make a lion or an eagle ; he must continue to 
represent the head and body of an ox. Just thus 
a man, at the commencement of life, may ac- 
quire such moral habits as he pleases ; but, when 
he begins to indulge in any vice, he must take 
with it all the concomitant vices with w T hich it 
is naturally associated. To estimate any vice, 
crime, or immorality, apart from these its natural 
consequences, is to estimate it fallaciously. 

We usually represent vice as resulting in pov- 
erty and disease, for these seem easy illustrations 
of its perniciousness. Still vice, and even crime, 
will sometimes (though rarely) procure wealth, 
reputation, and power, accompanied, too, by un- 
disturbed health ; but we may safely deny that 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 65 

vice and crime can, in any case, procure happi- 
ness. Providence makes happiness to be inde- 
pendent of reputation, public honour, and every 
other fortuitous possession, lest man, by grasping 
these, might be happy despite of misconduct ; as 
our first parents, had they eaten fruit of the tree 
of life, might have been immortal despite of 
transgression. 

• I must, however, warn you against a very 
prevalent fallacy. A vicious man may be rich, 
healthy, powerful, and enjoy much happiness, 
while a virtuous man may be poor, sick, power- 
less, and suffer much unhappiness; but, before 
we estimate thereby (as is the manner of some 
persons) the retributive justice of Providence, we 
must ascertain whether the vice of the vicious 
man is the cause of his riches, health, and hap- 
piness, and whether the virtue of the virtuous 
man is the cause of his poverty, sickness, and 
unhappiness. In probably every case, we shall 
find that the rich man's vice has made him less 
rich than he otherwise would have been, and 
less healthy, powerful, and happy ; while the 
poor man's virtue has greatly alleviated his pov- 
erty, sickness, and misery. 
F2 



66 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

I have attempted, however, to illustrate, in 
this discourse, not the evil consequences of a life 
engrossed by vice and immorality (for on this 
point no diversity of opinion exists), but to il- 
lustrate that every act of viciousness is injurious 
to the actor, and may be fatal to his reputation, 
property, health, and general happiness. If I 
have succeeded, you will admit that the world 
would be benefited if all actions which are thus 
hurtful could be distinctly designated, so that we 
might know the actions without waiting to learn 
them by our own observation when practised by 
other men, or by our own experience when prac- 
tised by ourselves. 

Fortunately, the task has been accomplished, 
and amply, with precautionary interdicts against 
every injurious thought and word, as well as ac- 
tion. The whole is to be found in a small book 
that is neither scarce nor dear. It is not a strict- 
ly methodical treatise on ethics; hence many 
persons read it without acquiring from it the 
moral knowledge which it is better able to yield 
than all the systematic treatises extant. The 
book to which I allude is the Bible. Its merits, 
as a moral guide, are become obscured by the 
diffusion of its own light ; for its morality is be- 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 67 

come so incorporated with our language, that it 
is known to persons who never read the Bible ; 
just as Latin and Greek words are so mingled 
with the English tongue as to be known to men 
who never heard of Greece and Rome. 

This assimilation of our notions with the mor- 
al doctrines of the Bible has been gradually ac- 
cruing for many centuries; hence w r e need not 
be surprised at the harmony which exists be- 
tween the morality of the Bible and our notions 
of right and wrong. But if w T e shall find, what 
experience will prove, that the practices which 
the Bible prohibits are all naturally prejudicial 
to society, we must admit the existence of a re- 
markable coincidence between the propriety of 
the prohibitions and the nature of society; es- 
pecially as the prohibitions extend over the 
Avhole compass of human actions, and include, 
either specifically or generally, every practice 
which is injurious to society, in every grade of 
civilization, in every period of time, and in all 
diversities of manners and climates, without iijj 
eluding among the prohibitions one practice that 
is beneficial to society. 

If, however, we shall find further (and this I 



68 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

have shown), that the prohibited practices are 
so injurious to the practiser also as not only to 
prevent him from benefiting himself at the ex- 
pense of society, but also to punish him severely 
if he shall make the attempt, our surprise must 
be excited at the accumulated beneficial coinci- 
dences. And further, if we shall find (as we all 
know) that the prohibited practices are general- 
ly inviting, and seem capable of yielding both 
pleasure and profit; that, previously to experi- 
ence, no man would anticipate evil from them ; 
and that the evil is generally produced circuit- 
ously, by the complicated machinery of man's 
organization, mental, physical, social, and moral, 
combined with the natural catenation of events, 
we shall be compelled to believe that inspiration 
alone could have revealed the prohibitions, and 
benevolence alone dictated the revelation. 

Man needed no revelation to teach him that 
his heart must pulsate, his lungs heave, and his 
thoughts wander ; for all his vital and intellect- 
ual powers perform their offices without his voli- 
tft>n. He needed no revelation to teach him that 
he must eat, drink, and sleep ; for all his appe- 
tites, passions, and animal necessities apprize 
him intuitively of their existence. He needed 



RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 69 

no revelation to inform him that fire will burn 
him, water drown, and iron bruise. To discover 
such facts was to constitute his occupation and 
his glory. His danger from them was also soon 
learned, and no temptation existed to encounter 
the danger after it was once discovered. But he 
needed a revelation to teach him what the Bible 
interdicts, for they are actions too tempting to 
imply danger, and often too dangerous to be ex- 
perienced without ruin. They are so multiform, 
also, that they are ever arising under a new as- 
pect, and so numerous that precept cannot enu- 
merate them, except in the form of general prop- 
ositions, as we find most of them embraced in 
the Bible. 

But the Bible not only interdicts certain prac- 
tices, it enjoins some. It says, " By humility and 
the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and 
life." To boast, aspire, and fear nothing but our 
stomachs, seem far more likely modes of acqui- 
ring honour, riches, and life. We shall find, 
however, that the practices, moral and religious, 
that the Bible enjoins, are as temporarily bene- 
ficial as the prohibited practices are injurious; 
but, as I have already taxed your patience to the 
extent that you may be willing to accord it, I 



70 THE CONDUCT WHICH RESULTS INJURIOUSLY. 

must borrow for the remaining topics another 
evening, if you shall feel sufficiently interested 
in them to again favour me with your attend- 
ance. 



LECTURE EL 

THE CONDUCT WHICH RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 

Providence governs the world by methods 
which will excite our admiration in a degree 
proportioned to our acquaintance with them. 
When food is necessary to sustain life, we feel a 
gentle craving to notify us of the duty which is 
required of us. If we comply, we are rewarded 
with an enjoyment which is usually sufficient to 
ensure our compliance. We thus seem to pos- 
sess the option of continuing in life, or of per- 
mitting our lamp to expire by withholding its 
oil ; but, practically, we possess no such option. 
We are created for purposes whose consumma- 
tion is not made dependant on our volition. If 
we will not be enticed to duty by the pleasure 
which is kindly attached thereto, the next resort 
of Nature is coercion ; and we are gnawed by 
hunger with an intensity which increases with 
our contumacy, till we are compelled to provide 
means for our preservation, and even to eat re- 
volting substances if no other are procurable. 



72 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

A similar process is applicable to all the ani- 
mal duties which are necessary, not to our exist- 
ence merely, but to our health, vigour, succes- 
sion, and general usefulness. Ambition may wish 
to dispense with sleep. We are told, hyperbol- 
ically I suppose, that the great Frederic of 
Prussia made the experiment, designing, if it 
succeeded, to introduce it into his armies. Idle- 
ness may desire to dispense with activity, while 
avarice and dissipation may wish to dispense 
with rest. Theorists may prescribe celibacy, 
and ascetics may proscribe mirth ; but Nature is 
an overmatch for all of us ; and, when we will 
not be enticed to duty, we are eventually com- 
pelled to submit to the intentions of our organ- 
ization. 

We are compelled to perform our duties in 
the manner, also, best adapted to their efficacy. 
We must partake of no food that is not nutri- 
tious. We must sleep at the periods best adapt- 
ed to our refreshment. We must exercise 
enough for the healthful vigour of our organi- 
zation, and we must refrain from exercise at the 
period when further exertion would be injurious. 
We must not use our teeth in operations that 
will impair their enamel, nor employ our sight 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 73 

beyond what our eyes can endure without injury. 
The more nicely we conform to what is thus ob- 
viously for our health, the more Nature rewards 
us with attendant pleasures ; and the more we 
deviate from this standard, the more Nature pun- 
ishes us with attendant pains* 

A like process attends the moral duties which 
promote the good of our fellow-men, as alms- 
giving, humility, courage, and other virtues. 
We are invited to the performance of them by 
an exquisite mental complacency, which in all 
cases accompanies the performance of moral du- 
ties, and which is intense in proportion as we 
perform the duties beneficially to our fellow- 
men. We are also rewarded by physical bene- 
fits, which are proportioned in degree by a like 
rule. Among these benefits are riches, honours, 
public esteem, and influence. But Providence 
has purposes to subserve by our moral conduct 
as well as our animal ; and the consummation 
of these purposes is not risked on the moral 
pleasures and physical benefits thus kindly asso- 
ciated with the performance of moral duties. If 
we will not be enticed by benefits, Nature co- 
erces us, by moral pains and physical penalties, 
till we submit to the performance of our duties, 
G 



74 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

or by our sufferings warn other persons from like 
contumacy. Providence disciplines us as we 
discipline our children. When bedtime arrives, 
we request them kindly to retire. If they obey, 
they depart with honour ; but if they are con- 
tumacious, we speak to them authoritatively, and 
augment our coercive processes till they who 
would not submit cheerfully and with honour, 
must submit with pain and dishonour. 

The pleasures and benefits which attend our 
performance of duty are, you perceive, only en- 
ticements to the performance of the duties, and 
not the purposes for which the duties are enjoin- 
ed. This arrangement of Providence men are 
continually reversing. They give alms, not to 
relieve the destitute (which probably is the de- 
sign of Providence in enjoining the duty), but to 
enjoy the incidental rewards that result from 
almsgiving. They practise humility, not to sooth 
the feelings of the unfortunate and humble 
(which may be the design of Providence in en- 
joining humility), but to procure exaltation. 
They confer benefits on their enemies, not to 
promote the peace and happiness of mankind 
(which probably is the intention of Providence 
in enjoining the duty), but to gratify revenge, in 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 75 

heaping coals of fire on the head of an enemy. 
Every such reversal of the intention of Provi- 
dence is vicious. The virtues which are thus 
viciously performed become thereby discredited. 
The performer is rendering dishonourable what 
Providence is striving to render honourable. 
Like all other vices, his hypocrisy defeats its 
own end, and is requited with evil instead of 
benefit. Your enemy sees that your favours are 
intended to humble him. He repels them with 
disdain, and his hatred acquires additional ran- 
cour. The unfortunate and the unpretending 
see that your humility is but arrogance in dis- 
guise, and they despise you for your pride and 
presumption. 

In the performance of our animal duties, a 
similar perversion is still more frequent and more 
directly punished. For the pleasure of eating, 
we eat when we are not hungry ; for the pleas*- 
ure of drinking, we drink when we are not 
thirsty ; for the pleasure of inaction, we rest 
when we are not weary ; for the pleasure of 
sleep, we slumber when we are not exhausted 
by wakefulness. A parent will sometimes entice 
a sick child to take medicine by mixing sweet- 
meats with it ; but should the child, when he is 



76 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

not sick, take medicine to obtain the sweetmeats, 
he will be injuring his health as well as pervert- 
ing the kindness of his parent. In like manner, 
the object of Providence is not to dispense sen- 
sual pleasure, but to make us fulfil certain du- 
ties ; and when we unnecessarily perform the du- 
ties for the sake of the attendant pleasure, we 
are perverting the kindness of Providence, and 
entailing on ourselves physical disease, and of- 
ten mental derangement. 

The Chinese are said to derive a sensual pleas- 
ure from certain appliances to the orifice of the 
ear. We are told that they employ instruments 
which are constructed for no other use. The 
practice- is not confined to the Chinese, tut all of 
us may have seen people who create a pleasure 
by introducing paper, or some other body, to tit- 
illate the ear. An incessant itching, w T hich still 
further induces the practice, is the first evil con- 
sequence of the surreptitious pleasure, while im- 
paired hearing is generally the ultimate result. 
This shows how strictly our organization con- 
forms to the general intention of making corpo- 
real pleasures enticements only to duty, and that 
we bring upon ourselves evil when we reverse 
this intention, and make corporeal pleasure the 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY, 77 

motive for any physical action. When opium 
relieves pain or induces necessary sleep, its use 
accords with the intention of Providence, as 
above explained ; but when we chew opium to 
procure pleasure, we pervert the principle for 
which Providence designed pleasure, and organ- 
ic injury ensues. The use of tobacco and of al- 
cohol in all their forms is usually for pleasure 
only, and hence is obnoxious to censures like 
the above, and requited with evils. 

From the foregoing principles we may learn 
the important rule of conduct, that neither phys- 
ical, moral, nor mental pleasure is procurable, 
except from the discharge of our moral, mental, 
and physical duties; and whoever attempts to 
procure it in any other way is sure to be disap- 
pointed. 

Segid, an emperor of Ethiopia, after devoting 
many years to the toils of empire, resolved, says 
Doctor Johnson, to devote ten days to pleasure. 
Repairing with his whole court to a luxuriant 
island, he sought pleasure by a cessation of all 
useful occupations, and an abandonment to all 
that was deemed pleasurable, but useless. The 
experiment of each day resulted in disappoint- 
G2 



78 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

merit, fear, anxiety, sickness, and death, till the 
court returned home with the conviction that 
no mortal can say that any future period shall 
be pleasurable and happy. Segid might have 
learned from his experiment the less obvious 
truth, that neither Nature in our animal and 
mental organization, nor Providence in the mor- 
al structure of the world, has made pleasure the 
object of any of its provisions. Pleasure is not 
an end, but a means. Had Segid performed 
virtuously the duties of his station, he would 
have received pleasure as an incident of the du- 
ties; but when he sought pleasure separated 
from usefulness, he was as little in the way of 
obtaining pleasure as a man would be to obtain 
riches wdio should seek them by hunting for 
them ; they, like pleasure, being obtainable only 
as an incident of something else. 

And what is thus true of pleasure is true of 
reputation, honour, riches,and all the other objects 
of gratification. When we make them the mo- 
tives of our conduct (instead of the rewards), 
we reverse the order which Providence has es- 
tablished, and usually fail of obtaining what we 
are perversely seeking. When Solomon was 
jasked what he most desired, he said, " Give thy 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 79 

servant an understanding heart to judge thy peo- 
ple. And God said unto him, Because thou hast 
asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself 
long life, nor riches, nor the life of thine ene- 
mies, lo ! I have given thee a wise and an un- 
derstanding heart ; so that there was none like 
thee before thee, neither after thee shall any 
arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee 
what thou hast not asked, both riches and hon- 



Had Solomon asked for honour, he might have 
become as ambitious a conqueror as Napoleon ; 
and, like him, have perished miserably after hav- 
ing desolated the w T orld. Had he asked riches, 
he might have satisfied his avarice, but at the 
expense of, perhaps, the industry and happiness 
of his subjects, and even of his life and wealth, 
which an oppressed people might eventually 
have wrested from him. He asked to perform 
well his regal duties, and the performance 
brought with it riches and honour as incidents 
of duty : incidents which every king will realize 
who seeks not honour and riches, but the good 
of his subjects. 

If a lawyer discharges well and faithfully his 



80 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

legal duties, riches and honour will follow as 
natural incidents to duties thus discharged ; but, 
should he make riches the object of his efforts, 
he will not necessarily perform well and faith- 
fully his legal duties, but subordinate them to his 
avarice, and lose his business and character with- 
out obtaining the riches even which he is vicious- 
ly pursuing. 

In a late number of the Edinburgh Review, a 
lawyer is spoken of who "in every instance 
made his client's cause his sole object. To ad- 
vance this object was always his aim; to put 
himself forward, never. The most happy illus- 
trations, the most sound legal topics, were sug- 
gested by him quietly, almost secretly, to his 
leader, from whose far less learned lips came 
forth, as if they had been his own, the sense of 
Mr. Holroyd ; who, so far from giving the least 
indication of the sources whence the point had 
come, only said a word in its support when ab- 
solute necessity required." 

The unambitious and unselfish Mr. Holroyd, 
who thus so merged himself in his legal duties 
as never to put himself forward, was, of course, 
put forward by no one else ; and he who so secret- 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 81 

]y bestowed information on a less learned supe- 
rior, was, of course, always deemed his subordi- 
nate ; but such was not the catastrophe, nor is 
such the order of Providence. Mr. Holroyd, 
u having long adorned the London bar, was 
raised to the bench ; and, as a judge, he fully 
sustained the high character which he carried 
with him from the forum f while the mass of 
his associates, who w r ere accustomed so to man- 
age as to put themselves forward, and, instead 
of whispering the information which they com- 
municated, took care always to publish it, were 
left to toil through life as unhonoured as their 
conduct was selfish ; wondering, perhaps, why 
men so regardless of their own interests as Mr. 
Holroyd should be elevated above them. 

The same review, in speaking of another law- 
yer who also became an English judge, says, 
" He enjoyed large emoluments, high rank, and 
general respect. To what did he owe these val- 
uable possessions ? To no rare genius, or even 
great talents or extraordinary accomplishments ; 
but to constantly making, in business, the suc- 
cess of his cause the paramount object ; and to 
never being drawn aside from the point of his 
client's interest by any selfish feeling of feeding 



82 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

his own vanity, or making any sacrifices either 
to amusement or display." 

These sketches of some distinguished men of 
Great Britain are written by Lord Brougham. 
The object of the writer is biography, but the 
sketches exhibit (as all biography will) that 
those who are most successful in obtaining rich- 
es, honours, and public respect, are not the per- 
sons who pursue these as the ends of their la- 
bours, but who obtain them as incidents to ac- 
tive virtues. Nor need we be surprised at such 
a result, or estimate it as any arbitrary interposi- 
tion of Providence. To confer wealth and hon- 
our on a lawyer is not the object of legal science, 
or of clients, courts, and judges. Their object is 
to dispense justice, redress wrong, shield the in- 
nocent, and punish the guilty. Society, acting 
on the instincts, motives, and principles which 
Providence has implanted in human nature, has 
made wealth and honour to be incidents of the 
faithful discharge of these duties, and poverty 
and dishonour incidents of the selfish discharge 
of them. 

A like principle pervades necessarily all the 
business occupations of life. If a clock-maker 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 83 

will be faithful in the performance of all the du- 
ties which pertain to his business, he is as certain 
of ultimately earning a comfortable support, as 
he is that the labour which he is performing will 
ultimately produce a clock, and that the clock, 
when produced, will accurately keep time. Were 
the support not a regular part of the process, 
mechanical business would cease. If, however, 
a man deserts the proper routine of business, 
plays while he should work, or uses lead in his 
clock where he ought to use steel, he possesses 
no guarantee that he will acquire a support, but, 
rather, that he will suffer poverty, disgrace, and 
miser}'. 

In the review just quoted, another lawyer is 
spoken of, who wrote a book on the law of ma- 
rine insurance. The reviewer says, "The work 
was devoid of all pretension except to explain 
the subject, and record the points fixed by au- 
thority ; claiming no praise for originality or 
profoundness of views, or for any very acute line 
of remark either upon the cases or principles." 

What, think you, became of the young man 
who, in writing a law-book, seemed to think of 
nothing but to make it useful ] The reviewer 



84 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

tells us : " The book soon lifted its author to a 
certain consideration among practitioners, and in 
1815 he was made a judge* Had he written a 
book to exhibit his originality, the profoundness 
of his views, and the vastness of his reading, he 
would probably have been stigmatized as a cox- 
comb, and ended his career by being simply Mr. 
Park, as he commenced it. To obtain meritorious 
books is beneficial to the world ; and society is 
pledged, by all the machinery of its construc- 
tion, to furnish readers and yield fame to the 
author of a meritorious book. But nothing is 
pledged to confer fame on persons who write 
only to render themselves famous ; hence an au- 
thor who selfishly makes fame his primary ob- 
ject, is inverting the natural order of things. 
His book will probably partake of the perversity 
of his motive, and, instead of yielding him fame, 
may yield him obloquy, if it escape contempt. 

A politician who interests himself usefully in 
public interests will obtain official station as an 
incident of his usefulness ; but, should he make 
office the motive of his political conduct, he will 
be as often uselessly busy as actively useful, and 
give offence by his officiousness rather than ob- 
tain favour by his usefulness. So a public offi- 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 85 

cer who discharges faithfully his public duties 
will obtain popularity as an incident of his faith- 
fulness ; but, should he pursue popularity as the 
object of his actions, he will not necessarily dis- 
charge faithfully his public duties. He will sub- 
ordinate them to his popularity, and probably so 
w T aver in his conduct, so fluctuate in his senti- 
ments, so mislead his friends, as to fail in obtain- 
ing the popularity which he is selfishly pursuing. 
A physician who skilfully performs his practice 
will obtain celebrity and patronage as incidents 
of his skill ; but, should he pursue celebrity and 
patronage as motives, he will magnify slight ail- 
ments, that he may obtain the merit of achiev- 
ing astonishing recoveries. He will publish mi- 
raculous cures which never occurred, and he will 
be contemned rather than obtain patronage and 
celebrity. 

The gospel ministry was instituted to teach 
men their moral and religious duties. Congre- 
gations are collected for this purpose, and edi- 
fices erected. A clergyman labouring faithfully 
in his vocation is but adapting his efforts to the 
moral and physical machinery with which he and 
his profession are surrounded. As a natural con- 
sequence of this adaptation, he will gain the 
H 



,86 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

love and respect of his parishioners, with a 
reputation for eloquence, piety, and usefulness. 
These are incidents of faithfulness, and to award 
them is the duty of hearers, and their interest. 
Suppose, however, that he shall subordinate his 
duties to the obtaining of the respect and love 
of his people, and a reputation for eloquence. 
Nothing around him will harmonize with his 
selfish motives. The edifice was not founded to 
minister to his pride and ambition ; nor was the 
congregation collected and the ministry instituted 
for purposes so unworthy. We know each other 
so well, that he wall not deceive his hearers, who 
will censure him as trifling and unfaithful. He 
will not be deemed even eloquent ; for, while he 
will preach what only he supposes will suit the 
feelings and taste of his hearers, he will be more 
likely to outrage both (acting from no virtuous 
standards) than to gratify either. 

If a youth at college will pursue faithfully his 
studies, and render due honour to his teachers, he 
will, as a natural incident thereto, obtain the re- 
spect of the faculty, with information and habits 
of study w T hich will aid hirn in his progress 
through life. Should he, however, make the 
respect of the faculty, and even collegiate hon- 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 87 

ours, the primary objects of his efforts, he will 
not be sure of obtaining the respect of the facul- 
ty or a good education. His aims are vicious ; 
they will comport with his obtaining fraudulent 
assistance, and parroting the labour of other per- 
sons. He will usually deceive no one but him- 
self, and ultimately obtain disgrace. That a 
youth who studies diligently should acquire 
learning and useful habits, are consequences to 
which all the machinery of instruction is adapt- 
ed. That learning and useful habits should con- 
fer honour, is a consequence with which all the 
machinery of society harmonizes ; but neither 
society nor college is adapted to produce bene- 
ficial results to him w T ho seeks merely collegiate 
honours. 

In the Divine vision heretofore quoted, Solo- 
mon was promised long life on the condition of 
his keeping all the statutes of the Lord. He 
was not promised it on the condition of nursing 
his health. Some men make the preservation of 
their health the primary, object of all their ae- 
tions ; and such persons are seldom successful in 
preserving health. They become valetudinary 
and hypochondriac, as a consequence of per- 
verting the intention of Providence, by making 



88 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

health the end of their actions instead of ma- 
king it the means of virtuous activity. When a 
man is most in the performance of his duties, and 
not thinking of his health, he is usually pursuing 
the course which is best calculated to preserve 
health. Life seems to be given us as only a 
means of general usefulness, and not for selfish 
enjoyment. When a plant has germinated, blos- 
somed, and perfected its seed, the object is ac- 
complished for which it was endued with life, 
and it dies. When a man has run through all 
the changes of manhood, and is no longer capa- 
ble of usefulness, his life seems no longer within 
the intention of Providence. Should his flesh 
become wounded, it will not heal. Should he 
break one of his bones, the fragments will not 
unite. 

A man who marries a virtuous woman, for 
whom he feels affection and respect, and who 
entertains a similar feeling towards him, will, as 
an incident to a union thus virtuously contracted, 
acquire new friends, an improved station in so- 
ciety, a happy home, a careful housekeeper, a 
sympathizing friend, and perhaps wealth. To 
produce these results, the laws of society and na- 
ture conspire. But, suppose a man should make 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 89 

wealth or friends the primary object in the selec- 
tion of a wife ; neither the laws of nature nor 
society conspire to ensure him, as an incident to 
such a union, a happy home or a sympathizing 
friend. He is perverting the ends of marriage, 
and will probably bring on himself various evils, 
just as if he should employ a razor to cut a 
rope ; he w r ould spoil the razor, and, perhaps, not 
even sever the rope ; for the razor was not con- 
structed for the use to which he is perverting it 
We are safe neither physically nor morally when 
we deviate from the intentions of Providence. 
While a man walks on his feet, the exercise is 
usually safe and salutary ; but if he will walk 
on his hands, with his feet upward, he cannot 
foresee the dangers and difficulties that may en- 
sue : they may be apoplexy, or dislocation of his 
neck, or injury to himself and others in many 
different ways. 

If you are employed as a servant, an instructer 
of youth, or an agent of any kind, and perform 
faithfully the duties of your station, you will, as 
an incident of your faithfulness, obtain, without 
seeking it, the confidence of your employer, with 
the highest pecuniary compensation which such 
services as yours are worth. If, however, you 
H2 



90 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

make any of these incidents the object of your 
conduct, you will so strive to attract the eye of 
your employer, and to make your services ap- 
pear valuable and faithful, that you will become 
a mere eye-servant, and lose the reward which 
you are viciously seeking. 

If you attend any public meeting, and devote 
yourself to the laudable objects for w T hich the 
assemblage is collected, you will obtain, without 
seeking them, the applause and respect of the 
meeting. If, on the contrary, applause and re- 
spect be converted by you into motives for the 
government of your conduct, you will, on every 
question, vote according to your views of its 
popularity ; speak only what you suppose will be 
deemed eloquent ; and, thus speaking and voting, 
you will make yourself ridiculous and useless. 
A man thus viciously influenced can hardly 
speak before his motives will be apparent ; and 
his speech will be as contemptible as the holy- 
day-declamation of a schoolboy. 

If a person is required to read aloud, or to 
conduct a lady into a drawing-room, he will 
perform the service with grace and ease if he at- 
tempt nothing but to perform usefully the re- 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 91 

quired service ; but if he selfishly attempt an ex- 
hibition of grace and ease, he will assuredly ex- 
hibit awkwardness and formality. 

The organization of society, from which pro- 
ceed many of the foregoing results, is not more 
favourable to virtuous conduct than are the or- 
ganization of man and the organization of the 
universe generally. Every man is constituted 
by Providence an independent sovereignty. He 
possesses powers of deliberation, retrospection, 
anticipation ; of publishing his thoughts or con- 
cealing them. He is termed a little world, be- 
ing an epitome of his whole race : a million of 
men possessing, like a million of clocks, nothing 
more in aggregation (physical strength except- 
ed) than what each man possesses separately. 
If, therefore, I presume to exercise revenge to- 
wards my fellow-men, I find them as vindictive 
as myself, and they will requite me with ven- 
geance. If I am arrogant, I must exercise it on 
beings as arrogant as I am. If I am selfish, oth- 
er men love themselves also. If I am passion- 
ate, I shall be encountered with equal rage, or 
ridiculed for my impotent bursts of passion. If I 
am censorious or unsocial, I shall either be de- 
serted, or teased as a venomous reptile. 



92 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

I have heard of a man who whipped his wife 
because she would not be good-natured and af- 
fectionate. This seems an odd remedy for ill- 
nature and dislike; still they are usually thus 
medicined, though the application is not always 
a whip. If a man is morose, and dares to prac- 
tise, in words or actions, what moroseness dic- 
tates, the world applies forthwith the horsewhip 
in a hundred ways, till the misanthrope regains 
his philanthropy. Scorn for scorn, blow for 
blow, is the discipline of the world \ and, with 
its thousand hands and thousand tongues, it pre- 
sents a fearful odds against a contumelious indi- 
vidual. 

The option presented to a man is like that 
presented to a caged canary. It may pine in its 
solitude if it chooses, refuse to eat, and angrily 
flutter against the wires of its cage till it bruise 
itself to death, then be cast unfeelingly forth to 
make a meal for its enemy the cat ; or it may 
gayly plume its wings, carol sweetly the tune it 
shall be taught, be fed and caressed for its pains, 
see its enemy the cat whipped for looking at it 
maliciously, and be mourned exceedingly when 
it shall, " like a shock of corn in due season," 
come to the finale of its gamut. 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 93 

If a child hold in his hand an orange, the im- 
pulse of every other child is to snatch it from 
him. Experience soon teaches us to abandon 
so gross an exhibition of self-love. The teach- 
ing is sometimes performed by the nails of the 
assailed child, which impress the lesson on the 
face of the assailant, who w T ill learn, long be- 
fore he attain manhood, that his self-love can be 
promoted by giving an orange to his companion 
rather than by snatching one from him. Every 
man will resist your attempts to benefit yourself 
at the expense of his property or feelings, though 
he will assist you if you can benefit him also. 
You may dislike this double duty of providing 
for the interests of your neighbours* as well as 
for your own ; but you can act no way so ad- 
vantageously as thus to love your neighbour as 
yourself, and no way so disadvantageous^ as to 
disregard the interests of your neighbour. 

When a child accidentally hits his head 
against a table, his first impulse is revenge, and 
he will strike the table in return ; but he soon 
learns that this is not the way to redress his in- 
jury. A similar principle is applicable to every 
species of revenge. It only excites retaliation. 
Revenge is like the children's game of seesaw. 



94 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

You no sooner mount aloft, and see your antag- 
onist, who is at the other extremity of the beam, 
precipitated to the ground, than you must see 
him begin to ascend, and precipitate you to the 
ground. Nor is this all. An eye for an eye, a 
tooth for a tooth, are only judicial standards of 
revenge. An individual who seeks revenge will 
deem six of your teeth necessary to repay one of 
his. Revenge is thus a self-augmenting process, 
and, therefore, hopeless as a remedy for injury. 

But, though our organization has benevolently 
precluded revenge, we may obtain redress for 
injury by requiting good for evil. This consti- 
tutes an infliction so practically severe, that it 
has been compared to heaping coals of fire upon 
the aggressor's head: You may dislike the pro- 
cess, but no other is efficacious. Should the 
events of life yield you no opportunity to redress 
your injuries, this contingency Nature has also 
provided for. Forgive your enemies. Pray for 
those who despitefully use you and persecute 
you. To desire revenge is a mental disease, and 
these are a mental remedy, by which the fester- 
ings of revenge will subside as suddenly, and by 
a cure as perfect, as the wounds of fabled heroes 
when some deity pours into the lacerated flesh 
a drop of celestial ether. 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 95 

To take heed not to give our alms before men, 
to be seen of them, seems a very unreasonable re- 
quirement ; for, though we can perceive that the 
beneficiaries of charity may be desirous of esca- 
ping the reproach of known mendicity, yet why 
should not the giver enjoy the fame of his bene- 
factions ? He should* ; but he can obtain it by 
only giving in the above benevolent manner. If 
nine tenths of your alms escape publicity, or even 
ninety-nine hundredths escape, the single alms 
that shall be discoveerd, with indubitable marks 
around it of honest intentional concealment, will 
cause men to impute to you a hundred times 
more alms than you ever gave. Our organiza- 
tion forces on us this result. He who gives os- 
tentatiously, receives credit for only what he 
gives. His ostentation proves that he gives only 
what is known, and the amount will usually be 
less than public estimation claims as his propor- 
tion ; hence the alms of such a man are viewed 
as evidences of his parsimony rather than of his 
munificence. 

These examples, and the various biographies 
which I have quoted, show how greatly our in- 
terests are thwarted by ostentation, revenge, self- 
ishness, moroseness, petulance, anger, arrogance, 



96 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

vanity, ambition, emulation, avarice, and the va- 
rious other modes of conduct which the Bible 
prohibits ; and how greatly our interests are 
promoted by forgiveness, brotherly kindness, hu- 
mility, disinterestedness, charity, and the various 
other modes of conduct that the Bible enjoins* 
And now direct your attention to the wonderful 
agreement which exists between the precepts of 
the Bible and the organization of man as I have 
briefly sketched it. The Bible prohibits only 
what is prohibited by our organization and the 
organization of the universe. The examples 
which I have adduced are sufficient in number 
and kind to elucidate the principle ; and you will 
find, on investigation, that the principle is appli- 
cable universally. You may, therefore, eat and 
drink, not to recruit Nature, but to enjoy the 
pleasures of appetite, till gout, dyspepsy, cor- 
pulence, and apoplexy teach you that the in- 
junctions of the Bible in favour of temperance, 
moderation, diligence, labour, and the prohibi- 
tions against excess, rioting, chambering, and 
wantonness, are founded in our organization, and 
not in the austerities of bigotry. You may 
make riches, • fame, honour, power, and person- 
al distinction the immediate motives of your 
thoughts, words, and actions ; but, after you have 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 97 

acquired the character of a knave, sharper, dem- 
agogue, time-server, sycophant, and worldling, 
and seen yourself surpassed in wealth, honour, 
fame, power, peace, respect, and happiness by 
some man who seemed never to think of any- 
thing but to be useful to his fellow-men by the 
most benevolent discharge of all the duties of 
his business and station, you will learn that, 
though you may refuse to act as the Bible en- 
joins, you must submit to the consequences that 
the Bible predicts. 

The religious duties which the Bible enjoins 
are also founded on our organization, and emi- 
nently beneficial, though we are prone to esti- 
mate them as homage exacted by Deity for his 
own gratification, when we are commanded to 
love the Lord our God with all our heart, to take 
not the name of the Lord in vain, and to keep 
holy the Sabbath day. The Bible contains no 
religious injunction that is not paralleled by some 
analogous provision of man in relation to human 
government. Our approaches to human legisla- 
tors must bear the humble appellation of peti- 
tions even in our country, not to gratify the van- 
ity of persons who are dependant on ourselves 
for the positions which they occupy, but to in- 
I 



98 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

spire a respect for the laws which they enact. 
A like policy produces the personal homage, the 
pompous titles, the profuse salaries with which 
all nations have ever invested their chief magis- 
trate. We often underrate the intelligence of 
mankind, when, in the homage thus paid to oc- 
casionally a boy or girl, we fail to see the utility 
which lies at the foundation of the observances. 
No principle is better established by experience 
than that, the moment a ruler loses the respect of 
his people, he loses all power to be useful. The 
Bible expressly disclaims selfish motives in Dei- 
ity. It says, " If thou sinnest, what dost thou 
against him ? or, if thy transgressions be multi- 
plied, what dost thou unto him ? If thou be 
righteous, what givest thou him? or what re- 
ceiveth he of thine hand 1 Thy wickedness 
may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteous- 
ness may profit the son of man."* " The Lord 
commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear 
the Lord our God, for our good always."f 

At a funeral in our city many years since, the 
officiating clergyman said, " The Lord gave, and 
the Lord hath taken away — " He was proceed- 
ing to complete the sentence, " Blessed be the 
* Job, ch. xxxv., v. 6, 7, 8. f Deuteronomy, ch. vi, v. 24. 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 99 

name of the Lord," when the chief mourner de- 
sired him to stop. He did not wish to hear 
" Blessed be the name of the Lord." He was 
burying his wife, and he wanted to resent the 
affliction by a refusal of submission ; but whom, 
except himself, did his rebellion injure ? Sub- 
mission w T as enjoined for our benefit under the 
inevitable evils of life, and not for the gratifica- 
tion of Deity, to whom " all the inhabitants of 
the earth are reputed as nothing. Who doth ac- 
cording to his will in the army of heaven and 
among the inhabitants of earth, and none can 
stay his hand, or say unto him, What dost 
thou V 

But, however we may fail to discover theoret- 
ically that the religious requirements of the Bible 
subserve our temporal interests, we may discover 
it practically ; for nothing is more consonant to 
experience and observation than that, as a man 
becomes languid in his religious feelings, he be- 
comes less benevolent, less patient, less scrupu- 
lous, less peaceable, more easily subdued by 
temptations, more addicted to vices. A man 
who is known to respect the religious injunctions 
of the Bible, receives credit in advance for keep- 

* Dan., ch. iv., v. 35. 



100 THE CONDUCT WHICH 

ing the moral injunctions ; while a man who is 
known to disregard the religious injunctions, is 
suspected of a tendency to disregard the moral 
injunctions, even though his conduct seems scru- 
pulously cautious of their observance. We uni- 
formly confide in a religious man in preference 
to an irreligious man, when we know nothing 
farther of the two individuals than the above 
difference. Of two physicians of whom we 
know nothing but their religious tenets, we 
should not so readily employ an irreligious as a 
religious man ; not only because sinister consid- 
erations may induce an unprincipled man to dis- 
regard our life, but because he may abuse the 
intercourse which physicians are accustomed to 
obtain in our families. Of two lawyers who are 
strangers to us, we more readily employ the reli- 
gious one than the irreligious ; for we deem the 
irreligious more likely than the other to neglect 
our interests from selfish considerations. Of two 
ships of equal goodness, and whose commanders 
are unknown to us except as to their religious 
character, we prefer, for a long voyage, the ship 
commanded by a religious man to the ship com- 
manded by an unbeliever. 

If, then, the religious injunctions of the Bible 



RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 101 

are thus practically connected with the moral in- 
junctions, a disregard of the religious injunctions, 
by reason of doubts in relation to the retributions 
of a future life (as is alleged by some persons), 
is as irrational as to disregard the precepts 
against stealing, adultery, and drunkenness by 
reason of like doubts; a utility in the present 
life being equally discoverable in both cases. 
Finally, the Bible not only enjoins nothing, mor- 
al or religious, but what, by our organization, is 
beneficial to us, and prohibits nothing but what 
is injurious to us, but every course of conduct 
which can be beneficial is, I believe, included 
within the injunctions of the Bible, and every 
course which can be prejudicial is included with- 
in the prohibitions. This position is too general 
to be proved ; but sufficient for the utility of the 
Bible is the extent of our conduct that admitted- 
ly falls within its cognizance. To rely on expe- 
rience alone for a knowledge of what is injurious 
or beneficial, would in many cases be as fatal 
as to rely on experience to teach us the proper- 
ties of arsenic ; the knowledge would not be at- 
tained till we had lost the capability of being 
benefited by it 

The Bible yields us this knowledge in advance, 
12 



102 THE CONDUCT WHICH RESULTS BENEFICIALLY. 

hence is admirably adapted to. a being who is in- 
capable of foreseeing the results of his actions, 
and yet is momentarily required to act in new 
positions; to decide on projects whose accept- 
ance may either enrich him or impoverish ; and 
on questions that involve his peace, honour, and 
health. That we need some fixed principles 
which shall supply the place of our short-sight- 
edness, and prevent us from choosing evil and 
rejecting good, has been conceded in all ages ; 
and from the concession has proceeded the va- 
rious codes of philosophy and morals with which 
the world has always abounded. To prove that 
the Bible is the guide thus needed has been the 
object of this discourse, which I will conclude by 
quoting the words of Locke, who, when entreat- 
ed to draw up a system of morals, replied, " Did 
the world want a rule, I confess there would be 
no work so necessary nor so commendable ; but 
the Gospel contains so perfect a body of ethics, 
that Reason may be excused from that inquiry, 
since she may find man's duty clearer in revela- 
tion than in herself."* 

* Grove's Moral Philosophy, vol. i., p. 12. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE ART OF CONTROLLING OTHERS. 

During one of Napoleon's military excursions 
from France, an insurrection occurred in Paris. 
The conspirators were captured, but not till 
they had committed open aggression, and great- 
ly alarmed the city. Six of the prisoners were 
shot by order of the persons to whom the em- 
peror had intrusted the government \ but Napo- 
leon, when he heard of the revolt and execution, 
expressed great disapprobation that so large a 
number had been shot. Why, think you ? Be- 
cause he feared that the world would deem him 
sanguinary in his justice and ferocious in his 
feelings. We see in this single instance that no 
station is so exalted as to disregard the senti- 
ments and feelings of mankind ; and that, to ob- 
tain in our favour the sentiments and feelings 
that we desire, we must relv on other means 
than power, station, physical force, or wealth. 

This insubordination of men's feelings oper- 



104 THE ART OF 

ates to protect the weak against the strong, the 
powerless against the powerful. What would 
be the condition of the whole female race, if 
their affections could be commanded by men's 
physical superiority ? We should know nothing 
of the chivalry which induced armed knights to 
deem the smile of some fair lady an equivalent 
for privation, toil, and danger ; nor would the 
hardy man of our forests employ his physical 
superiority to render as little laborious as possi- 
ble the domestic duties of his wife. 

The protective principle is augmented, in the 
case of women, by an organization which makes 
them but little solicitous for the love of man ; 
while man is solicitous for the love of woman 
beyond any of his other wants. To feel love, 
woman must, in the significant language of life, 
be wooed ; to retain love, she must be cherished ; 
but in man, the feeling waits for no wooing, 
needs no cherishing. 

Gould a parent coerce the feelings and senti- 
ments of his children as he can their corporeal 
organs, how defenceless would be childhood. 
But we desire their love, gratitude, and respect ; 
and, to obtain these, our physical superiority is 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 105 

ineffectual, unless we employ it for the pleasure, 
protection, and instruction of the children. 

The protective principle is augmented in this 
case, too, by an organization which makes pa- 
rents more solicitous to obtain the love, grati- 
tude, and respect of the child, than the child is 
the love of the parent. Even the happiness of 
the child the parent desires more than the child 
desires it; hence, by an intuitive cunning, an 
offended child will not eat, that the parent may 
be afflicted at its abstinence ; it will not play, 
that the parent may be afflicted by its want of 
recreation ; it will grieve, that the parent may 
be afflicted by its grief. 

But I address you to-night, not to prove that 
we desire in our favour the sentiments and feel- 
ings of mankind, and that, to gratify such desire, 
we must employ other expedients than physical 
force and official compulsion, but to teach you 
the means by which you may control the feel- 
ings and sentiments of mankind. For Provi- 
dence, in creating us with keen sensibilities to- 
wards the sentiments and feelings of our fellow- 
men, has not tantalized us with wants which we 
cannot influence ; nor, in protecting men's feel- 



106 THE ART OF 

ings and sentiments from physical coercion, has 
Providence intended that men shall feel as they 
please towards any individual, regardless of his 
moral qualities, and possess towards him the 
sentiments which they please, regardless of his 
conduct. 

A European need not solicit mankind not to 
deem him a negro. They cannot if they would, 
for our senses are compelled to note correctly 
the properties of bodies. A man of sound un- 
derstanding need not solicit mankind not to deem 
him insane or idiotic. They possess no discre- 
tion in the matter, for our intellect is compelled 
to note correctly the properties of mind. 

By virtue of these principles, we rely with 
confidence, while we are not criminal, that crimes 
will not be imputed to us ; and while we are not 
vicious, that vices will not be imputed to us. So 
unnatural is any other conduct, that, when a man 
gratuitously attempts to prove himself not guilty 
of any crime, he excites a suspicion of guilt; 
and when he gratuitously rebuts the presump- 
tion of any vice, as when he boasts of courage, 
we suspect him of cowardice. The principle is 
often ludicrously manifested in a child, who will 



CONTROLLING OTHEPwS. 107 

give you the first intimation that he has broken 
your watch, by announcing that he has not 
thrown down your watch. A drunkard, when 
he feels the approach of excess, will make de- 
monstrations of wisdom in his speech and firm- 
ness in his gait to prove that he is sober ; and a 
liar, when he utters an untruth, will accompany 
his communication with asseverations of its ver- 
ity. We have, therefore, only to avoid conduct 
which we wish not imputed to us, and mankind 
cannot impute it. 

Instead of doubting the efficacy of the princi- 
ple, we presume on the forbearance of the world 
beyond the limit which Nature has thus assigned 
to it. We desire to avoid the imputation of en- 
viousness, while we are envious ; to avoid the 
odium of revenge, without forbearing opportuni- 
ties of vengeance; not to be accounted mean, 
and still to enjoy the profits of meanness ; not to 
be accounted inhospitable, and still to avoid the 
trouble and expense of hospitality ; not to be 
deemed slanderous, and still to vent detraction ; 
not to be deemed liars, and still to utter un- 
truths ; not to be deemed treacherous, and still 
to betray confidence. 

. to? J. .. 



108 THE ART OF 

Vain, however, are all such attempts. Man, 
though very ingenious in dissimulation, yet all 
his ingenuity is common to his whole race. The 
spider, when pursued, and his retreat hopelessly 
intercepted, will roll himself up into the form of 
a ball, and lie motionless! This stratagem will 
often deceive a boy who is in pursuit of the spi- 
der. The boy will suppose that the spider has 
already been killed, and will leave him ; or he 
will mistake the little ball for a piece of earth, and 
suppose that the spider is escaped. But, though 
a spider can thus deceive a boy, it cannot thus 
deceive another spider. A pursuing spider would 
detect the stratagem instantly. He would rec- 
ognise in it a trick that belongs to every spider, 
and to which he, probably, had often resorted. 

A hare, also, when pursued by hounds, knows 
well that his tracks are the means by which his 
pursuers detect him. He will, accordingly, double 
on his tracks. That is, he will run back some 
distance in the same footsteps, and then sudden- 
ly leap to a great distance, and run off in a new 
direction. His pursuers may not understand this 
stratagem, and, when they arrive at the end of 
the first track, may be unable to trace farther 
the artful fugitive. But think you a hare, were 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 109 

he the pursuer, could be thus baffled ? He 
would perceive immediately that the fugitive had 
doubled, and would know well where to find the 
new track. The trick is as much a part of the 
nature of each hare as the similarity of their ap- 
petites, tastes, and habits. 

So a man cannot deceive men. You are mas- 
querading before others who have masqueraded 
themselves. They know every turn of the game 
as skilfully as you. We are, to every essential 
extent, repetitions of each other. If what you 
utter proceeds from envy, no disguise can pre- 
vent youi 4 envy from being detected. If your 
actions result from penuriousness, no ostentation 
of liberality can hide it, no protestation of mu- 
nificence conceal it. 

The organization which thus precludes men 
from imparting to you any quality which you pos- 
sess not, compels them to impute to you every 
quality which you possess ; hence, while you are 
endeavouring, by artful professions of religion, to 
conceal irreligion, you compel the world to im- 
pute to you hypocrisy in addition to irreligion. 
While you are endeavouring, by professions of 
courage, to conceal cowardice, you force the 
K 



110 , THE ART OF 

world to deem you a braggart as well as a cow- 
ard. While you are endeavouring to disguise 
ingratitude by professions of gratitude, you make 
the world deem you deceitful as well as ingrate. 
While you are endeavouring to conceal igno- 
rance by displays of knowledge, you are causing 
the world to deem you vain as well as ignorant. 

But we can, if we please, employ this prin- 
ciple beneficially. If we desire to be deemed 
religious, we have only to be religious, and we 
must be thus deemed. If you desire to be 
deemed veracious, speak the truth habitually, 
and you must be thus deemed. If you desire to 
be deemed trustworthy, patriotic, benevolent, 
just, hospitable, philanthropic, studious, learned, 
be what you desire to be deemed, and your rep- 
utation must conform to what you are. 

Nor need you be anxious to make men ob- 
serve your good qualities. Any agency which 
you thus exert will transform your reputable ac- 
tions into disreputable. It will convert learning 
into pedantry ; religion into pharisaism ; humil- 
ity into ostentation ; condescension into arro- 
gance ; praise into flattery. Any action, how 
good soever, the worst man will perform if you 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. Ill 

compensate him for the performance ; hence, to 
the extent which a love of reputation influences 
your conduct, you are as little meritorious as he. 
His selfishness requires money, yours is satisfied 
with reputation. 

Having thus shown how we may control the 
opinions of the world with reference to our 
character, both negatively and affirmatively, I 
will show how we may control the feelings of 
the world with reference to our persons. While 
the senses and intellect of mankind are so or- 
ganized that men must, as we have seen, impute 
to us the qualities which we possess, the moral 
feelings of mankind are so organized that men 
must feel towards us according to the moral 
qualities which we possess. If we are lovely, 
we must be loved ; if hateful, we must be hated ; 
if contemptible, we must be contemned ; if de- 
spicable, we must be despised. 

To ensure the uniformity of such results, Na- 
ture has formed men much alike. A million of 
organs, manufactured from the same pattern, 
possessing the same stops and notes, respond not 
to each other with more similarity of sound, on 
the pressure of any given key, than a million 



112 THE ART OF 

of men will respond to each other, in similarity 
of approbation and aversion, on any given oc- 
currence. When Queen Victoria, a very young 
maiden, arose from her seat during her corona- 
tion, and, disregarding etiquette, assisted an old 
nobleman, who was painfully endeavouring to 
ascend the steps of her throne, to yield her, ac- 
cording to the custom of the kingdom, his per- 
sonal homage, the spectators responded to the 
action with acclamations. They needed no con- 
ference to ascertain the feeling which the action 
should excite in them. Providence had prede- 
termined it for them. 

If history shall record the incident, no period 
will arrive when the readers will not harmonize 
in feeling with the spectators. Eight hundred 
years ago, a son of William the Conqueror was 
entering his father's palace, when his brothers 
sprinkled some water on him from a room above. 
The action was in character with the childhood 
of the actors, but the sons were not fraternally 
disposed towards the brother who was made the 
object of this practical joke, and who, therefore, 
deemed the action an insult ; and, unsheathing 
his sword, he ran up stairs to inflict vengeance 
on the aggressors. 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 113 

Actions like the above would not, probably, 
occur now among the sons of a king of Eng- 
land, for manners change ; but our organization 
changes not : hence, to know the feelings with 
which the water was thrown eight hundred years 
ago, enables us to understand now the feelings 
of the person on whom it was thrown. 

The uniformity of our moral organization is 
exhibited in the abhorrence which our whole 
population feels towards Arnold, and the affec- 
tion towards Washington. So definite, also, 
are the principles which regulate us, that our 
present feelings could have been predicted be- 
fore Arnold practised treason or Washington 
exhibited patriotism. So the effect can be fore- 
seen of any conduct, and, as we usually behave 
as we please, each of us can predetermine the 
feelings which the world shall entertain towards 
him, though, from the occasional complaints of 
men, you would imagine that the world dis- 
pensed its feelings either fortuitously or by fa- 
vouritism. The obnoxious recognise any cause 
but their own agency in the aversion of the 
world. The world is, however, the most impar- 
tial of human tribunals. Like the broad Onta- 
rio, it is too vast to be imbittered by the rills of 
K2 



114 THE ART OF 

personal enmity, too vast to be sweetened by the 
tricklings of personal friendship. 

As a preliminary, however, to a control of 
the feelings of the world, a man must know 
what conduct will excite in other men the feel- 
ings that he desires ; and, providentially, Nature, 
in giving us wants which require the concurrent 
feelings of other men, has not failed to suggest 
the means of obtaining such concurrence. As 
weariness dictates a recumbency of posture, and 
drowsiness a closing of the eyes; as anger 
clinches our fists, and dictates the infliction of 
blows on the object of our anger (a dictate 
which we often see expended by an enraged 
man in striking his fists against each other 
when the restraints of society deter him from 
striking his enemy), so love, which requires in 
its gratification the concurrent affection of an- 
other being, dictates to us the looks, words, and 
actions that will obtain the required affection. 

Novels are an exaggerated picture of human 
nature ; yet, as they derive their interest from 
our sympathy, they seldom depart wholly from 
real life. In novels, then, we often find de- 
scribed a person in whom love produces so ex- 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 115 

alting an appreciation of the person beloved, and, 
by contrast, so humiliating a consciousness of his 
own inferiority, that the love to which he is a 
prey is deemed too presumptuous to be avowed, 
and manifests itself by only mute adoration, and 
incessant but secret efforts to delight and bene- 
fit. By the course, however, of the novel, the 
person thus yielding to the natural dictates of 
his intense feeling, excites, more effectually than 
he could by any other means, a reciprocal at- 
tachment in the person beloved. 

We shall find that a principle like the above 
is general. If you feel complacency towards 
any person, it will dictate conduct that will ex- 
cite in him complacency towards you. If you 
feel confidence in any person, it will dictate con- 
duct that will excite in him confidence towards 
you. If you feel friendship for him, it will dic- 
tate conduct that will excite in him friendly 
feelings towards you. Sympathy will excite 
sympathy, respect will excite respect, liberality 
will excite liberality, forgiveness will excite for- 
giveness. In short, " as ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye to them likewise." 
This scriptural rule we are accustomed to esti- 
mate as a measure by which we are only to dis- 



116 THE ART OF 

pense favours ; but it is equally applicable as a 
means for the obtaining of favours. 

If we believe Doctor Darwin, an analogous 
principle is discoverable in quadrupeds. He 
says, when the shoulder of a horse itches, and 
he wants to allay the irritation, he goes to an- 
other horse and bites him on the shoulder ; and 
the bite is immediately returned on the corre- 
sponding part of the biter, who thus obtains the 
relief that he needed. This may be fanciful, but 
it illustrates the construction which I have given 
to the above scriptural rule, with this difference, 
however, which the Scriptures superadd, in def- 
erence, perhaps, to the moral intelligence of 
men, that we must perform our good actions 
" hoping for nothing again."* 

To perform any action under the hope of an 
equivalent return deprives it of its beneficial in- 
fluence. Why should you be exalted for humil- 
ity, if you are humble for exaltation ? Why 
respected for disinterestedness, if you are disin- 
terested to gain respect? Why honoured for 
alms-giving, if you give alms to purchase hon- 
our ? Why befriended for your friendliness, if 

* Luke vi., 35. 






CONTROLLING OTHERS. 117 

you are friendly to acquire friendship 1 This is 
to traffic for the feelings of other men, instead 
of controlling them by the processes of Nature. 

If you do good to your enemy, as a result of 
your benevolence, the enemy must reproach him- 
self for having injured so beneficent a person ; 
but if you do good to him for the purpose of ex- 
citing his self-reproach, and thereby figuratively 
heaping coals of fire on his head, you are no 
more deserving of his gratitude than if you 
feasted him on poisoned sweetmeats, or gave 
him a house which you expected would fall and 
bury him in its ruins. If you will not judge un- 
favourably of your fellow-men, they will, as an 
incident of your estimable feelings, judge favour- 
ably of you ; but if you refrain from judging 
other men for the mere purpose of procuring a 
similar forbearance from them, your selfish pru- 
dence presents no motive for their forbearance. 
If you will forgive men their trespasses against 
you, they will, as an incident of your amiable 
placability, forgive your occasional faults; but 
if you forgive to procure a reciprocation of for- 
giveness, your stratagem presents no inducement 
for any peculiar indulgence. The more corrupt 
your conduct, the more willingly would you en- 



118 THE ART OF 

ter into such a compact with the world. Even 
the love of a woman Nature will not assist you 
to procure, if you seek her love for your own 
gratification. Such a motive possesses no attrac- 
tion to her. 

Nay, your love for her, how ardent soever, is 
not the motive by which her love can be ac- 
quired, though it will be an incident in your fa- 
vour. She can love you only when she deems 
you lovely, and this you may not be, though you 
love her. So consonant is this truth to our ex- 
perience, that, when we want to facilitate any 
person's suit to a lady, w T e adduce instances of 
his general loveliness, and palliate or refute any 
known instances of malevolence. 

The rule, " As ye would that others should do 
to you, do ye to them likewise," is most effica- 
cious w r hen applied to our conduct towards man 
collectively. To a modified extent only will my 
love for an individual excite his love, and my 
friendship excite his friendship ; but my love for 
mankind generally will uniformly excite the 
love of mankind towards me ; and my friendli- 
ness for mankind generally will invariably ex- 
cite the friendliness of mankind towards me. 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 119 

This broad application conforms to the compre- 
hensive benevolence of the Author of the rule, 
who, in all his provisions, seeks not the good of 
individuals only, nor the greatest good of the 
greatest number (which is the boasted extent of 
political benevolence), but the greatest good of 
all. The most predominating distinction between 
Washington and other men can be traced to the 
universality embraced by his feelings. Other 
men have been friendly to individuals, and 
thereby obtained individual friends ; but he was 
friendly to all, and thereby made all men his 
friends. Other men have loved a sect or a par- 
ty, and thereby obtained the love of a sect or 
party ; but he loved his whole race, and thereby 
obtained the love of his whole race. 

The like, to a modified extent, may be said of 
Howard. Other men have visited prisons to 
minister to the wants of particular individuals, 
but his feelings embraced the unfortunate of 
every grade and character. The distinction be- 
tween individual benevolence and general be- 
nevolence involves a difference of motive and 
character. Individual benevolence is ever par- 
tially selfish ; hence, " if ye love them which 
love you, what reward have you 1 do not even 



120 THE ART OF 

the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your 
brethren only, what do ye more than others ? do 
not even the publicans so ?" 

Providence has not, you perceive, subjected 
our feelings to the conduct of other men irre- 
spective of their motives, but rather to their 
motives irrespective of their conduct. If you 
plunge into a river to save a man from drown- 
ing, the benevolent feeling which constitutes 
your motive will excite the approbation of be- 
holders, even though you unfortunately encum- 
ber the person and drown him ; but should you 
plunge into a river for the purpose of encumber- 
ing a struggling man, your malevolence will ex- 
asperate against you the beholders, though you 
accidentally become entangled with the drown- 
ing man and save him. 



•*o 



When Queen Victoria arose from her throne 
on the occasion already referred to, the plaudits 
with which she was greeted proceeded from the 
benevolence of her motives. Had she performed 
the action to display the imbecility of her aged 
adherent, disapprobation and resentment would 
have been excited. If we injure a person ever 
so severely^ he becomes appeased immediately 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 121 

when he learns that the injury was undesigned. 
If a man kill another by unconsciously adminis- 
tering to him food that is poisoned, the act is le- 
gally innocent ; but if you give him pure food, 
knowing that in his condition it will kill him, 
the act is murder. 

But we are not content to let the feelings of 
other men towards us arise incidentally as a con- 
sequence of the feelings which we bear towards 
them. We want to be loved, without obtaining 
it as an incident of our loving others, but as an 
incident of our desire to be beloved. We want 
friends, not as an incident of our friendliness, but 
as an incident of our selfish desire to be benefited 
by friendship. We want to be trusted, not as 
an incident of our faithfulness, but as an incident 
of our curiosity or avarice. We want to be ex- 
alted, not as an incident of our humility, but as 
an incident of our ambition. 

Nay, we strive to diverge still farther from 
the established moral order of Nature, and to be 
loved though we hate, respected though w r e are 
mean, trusted though we are treacherous, be- 
friended though we are unfriendly, which are 
all moral impossibilities. I will not say that a 
L 



122 THE ART OF 

man can in no degree and in no instance feign 
love, and thereby excite love in return ; nor that 
flattery and presents may not, in particular cases, 
excite a modified friendship. These instances 
are a fraud on the processes of Nature, and, like 
other frauds, are only partial in their success, 
and restricted in their operation. A counterfeit 
feeling, even when it escapes detection as a 
counterfeit, is not as effective as a genuine feel- 
ing; just as a set of false teeth, a counterfeit 
eye, and false hair, how skilfully soever formed, 
and though we may not suspect them to be coun- 
terfeit, will not produce the agreeable effect of a 
natural set of beautiful teeth, natural eyes, and 
natural hair. Something incongruous about the 
deception will rather shock us than excite our 
complacency. 

Equal incongruities attend a feigned character. 
Forgiveness, when it results from benevolence, 
is always accompanied with congruous qualities 
throughout the whole man ; and which accom- 
paniments will be wanting when forgiveness is 
only assumed to create self-reproach in an ene- 
my. Humility is always attended with patience, 
diffidence, and other congruous qualities; the 
absence of which must ever discriminate it from 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 123 

the ostentatious humility that is only assumed to 
obtain exaltation. Friendliness, when it pro- 
ceeds from kind feelings towards all men, must 
be ever distinguishable from the occasional and 
discrepant friendliness by which selfishness seeks 
to obtain favours. 

And not only are congruous qualities wanting 
in such cases, but qualities which conflict with 
the assumptions are present. When an avari- 
cious man seeks an alliance by marriage with 
wealth, the presumption is irresistible that love 
alone is not his motive. When an ambitious 
man professes patriotism, an ostentatious man 
liberality, a niggardly man hospitality, a morose 
man tenderness, an artful man frankness, we 
are compelled, by the organization of our 
thoughts and feelings, to suspect sinister mo- 
tives. Few of us have attained to the meridian 
of life without having met with some person 
who has vainly endeavoured to gain our confi- 
dence. He has been professedly willing to re- 
pose in us his life, property, and honour ; but, 
instead of reciprocating his confidence, w r e have, 
in the language of Junius, felt rather, " when he 
smiled, an inclination to guard our throats from 
danger;' 5 and this person, in the progress of 



124 THE ART OF 

events, has developed the character of a knave. 
Conduct that lacks sincerity is deficient in the 
quality that constitutes its efficacy. Like a piece 
of iron that possesses the form only of a magnet, 
it will not attract, though to the eye it may seem 
a perfect magnet. Nor need we wonder at this 
when we reflect that our feelings dictate not 
merely the actions which we perform and the 
words which we utter, but the expression of 
our countenance and the intonation of our voice. 
The tragedian who attempts to express fear at 
what he knows is no ghost, and surprise at what 
he has often heard, almost invariably, even when 
most successful, only caricatures the feelings that 
he is endeavouring to portray ; so, in common 
life, we cannot counterfeit Nature accurately, we 
can only caricature it. 

A child, at a very early age, will keep' aloof 
from persons whose feelings are not in unison 
with infantile annoyance, though the persons 
may endeavour to conceal that they are annoy- 
ed ; nor usually can men, w T hose intentions are 
destructive, make themselves pleasing to the in- 
dividuals whom they desire to injure. In Cap- 
tain Franklin's over-land journey to the Polar 
Seas, his party was reduced to famine. Some 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 125 

of them died, and were secretly eaten by a por- 
tion of the survivers. One who had thus feast- 
ed evinced an appetite for the flesh of his living 
comrades. He endeavoured to conceal his can- 
nibal propensities, but, from the principles we 
have been considering, they saw that he was 
only prowling around them like a ravenous 
wolf, and, in self-defence, they suddenly shot 
him dead. 

But whatever success dissimulation may occa- 
sionally achieve against all the obstacles which 
Nature interposes to its success, it only demon- 
strates the efficacy of genuine feelings ; for, if 
dissembled friendship will excite friendly feel- 
ings, how much more efficacious must be actual 
friendship ? 

The rule which we have been considering is 
as effective in bringing on me the "malevolent 
feelings of the world as the good. If I feel ill- 
will towards men, they will feel ill-will towards 
me; if I am censorious, they will censure me ; 
if I hate, they will hate me; if I insult, they 
will insult me; if I am unsocial, they will de- 
sert me ; if inhospitable, they will neglect me ; 
if contemptuous, they will contemn me ; if de- 
L2 



126 THE AKT OF 

spicable, they will despise me. So unvarying is 
the operation of the rule, in both the good feel- 
ings and the bad, that, if any person will tell me 
accurately the feelings which he cherishes, I 
can, without further information, tell him how 
men feel towards him, just as a mathematician 
can tell you the last angle of a triangle when 
you tell him the first two angles. 

To strike a person will not more naturally ex- 
cite in him a desire to strike you in return, than 
a kind act will excite in him a desire to act 
kindly to you in return. Both cases proceed on 
the retaliatory process which belongs to our or- 
ganization. And so exempt is the process from 
considerations of mere personal loss and gain, 
that a blow inflicted on any man excites a mod- 
ified pugnacity against you of all men ; and an 
act of kindness to any man excites the good-will 
towards you of all men. The mob which col- 
lects to exercise Lynch law on notorious profli- 
gacy is seldom composed of persons who have 
been personally injured by the offences that they 
seek to avenge. 

Nero was the object of almost universal exe- 
cration in Rome ; but the victims to even his ma- 



CONTROLLING OTHERS. 127 

lignity were few in comparison to the number 
whom he had thus made his enemies. In cases 
of great cruelty, by a master to his apprentice, 
of a parent to his infant offspring, or where a 
child has been cruelly kidnapped from its moth- 
er, the feelings of strangers, who are accidental- 
ly passing near the scenes of such outrages, and 
whom the offender has no way personally in- 
jured, are often so intensely excited that the 
life of the criminal is preserved with difficulty 
irom their natural vengeance. 

So, too, when General Lafayette visited our 
country, and passed through it, the nations' 
guest, greeted by multitudes to whom he was 
personally a stranger, it resulted from the sym- 
pathy of our nature for feelings evinced by him 
at a period anterior even to our birth who thus 
honoured him. Society is like a spacious hall 
hung w T ith mirrors around and above. You may 
address yourself to any one mirror ; but, if you 
contemptuously yawn before it, all the others 
will return the yawn. Place yourself before it 
in an attitude of defiance, with clinched fists and 
threatening brow, the mirror will return your de- 
fiance, and all the others will repeat it. 



128 THE ART OF CONTROLLING OTHERS. 

Finally, then, if we will control our own feel- 
ings, we can control the feelings which other 
men shall bear towards us, and be loved or ha- 
ted, as we shall elect ; but if we will not control 
our own feelings, we cannot thereby prevent 
them, whatever they may be, from exciting in 
other men the feelings which are correlative to 
ours. We are, in this particular, like a man who 
is fallen into a deep river. He may perform ac- 
tions which will keep him afloat, and he may 
perform actions that will drown him ; but if, 
from ignorance or folly, he will not voluntarily 
control his fate and be saved, he cannot prevent 
death if he perform the actions that produce 
drowning : he will gain nothing by passiveness, 
but only leave to chance what he may control 
by effort. 

But how can we control our own feelings % 
This I propose to inform you ; but, as the topic 
is too important to be exhibited summarily, I 
must postpone it to my next, which will also be 
my concluding discourse. 



LECTURE V. 

THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." These 
two commandments are said to be a condensa- 
tion of all that the Bible enjoins in reference to 
our conduct both religious and moral. But our 
feelings are not subject to our control. 

" Love, free as air, disdains all human ties, 
Spreads his soft wings, and in a moment flies." 

Pope thus represents love as not only independ- 
ent of our will, but so perverse as to escape 
merely because we seek to bind him. 

George, the fourth king of England of that 
name, after having been married about a year, 
wrote to his wife, from his palace of " Windsor 
Castle : 

" April 30, 1796. 

" Madam, 
" Our inclinations are not in our power, nor 
should either of us be held answerable to the 
other, because Nature has not made us suitable 



130 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

to each other. Tranquil and comfortable society 
is, however, in our power ; let our intercourse, 
therefore, be restricted to that." 

The logic of this letter is consonant to the 
known independence of our feelings, though we 
possess a latent conviction that the position is 
not correct. The prince (he was not yet king) 
seems to have deemed his condition more com- 

iserable than blameworthy. He w r as, doubt- 
less, called a very unfortunate gentleman. If, 
then, a husband cannot love a wife, whom a 
year previously he had solemnly promised to 
love, " how can he love God whom he hath not 
seen V 9 and how can he love all his neighbours, 
when some of them are not a little unlovely 1 

In view of these difficulties, men estimate a 
conformity of feeling to the requirements of the 
Bible as a consummation to be desired rather 
than a duty to be executed. And, truly, if our 
affections, passions, and other feelings be as in- 
dependent of our will as they are theoretically 
deemed to be, not only the letter of the Prince 
of Wales is defensible, but marriage itself 
must be unsuited to a being so fickle as man, 
while the requirements of the Bible to love God 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 131 

with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourself, 
are a sarcasm. But our passions, appetites, and 
other feelings are not thus independent of our 
volition. 

In Scott's novel of Kenilworth, the unmerited 
persecutions and sorrows of the Countess of Lei- 
cester so affect us, and with the very feelings 
that Scott designed to excite, that we strive, 
though in vain, to appease our commiseration by 
reflecting that the events are fictitious. The 
words of the narrative will, as an essential part 
of their meaning, excite the feelings. Like the 
sounds of an organ, our feelings must burst forth 
if you press the proper key ; and, among the ob- 
jects which can thus press us, none is so effect- 
ive over a man's own feelings as his own words, 
thoughts, and actions ; hence a man can excite 
in himself any feeling if he know the. words, 
thoughts, and actions with which the feeling is 
associated. To teach this constitutes the object 
of the present discourse ; and, when you have 
learned it, you will possess the art of self-con- 
trol. 

Every feeling gives to our appearance a pe- 
culiar look, to our voice a peculiar tone, to our 



132 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

language a peculiar phraseology, to our limbs a 
peculiar action, to our thoughts a peculiar ten- 
dency. These natural associates of every feel- 
ing are so familiar to our experience, that we 
tell by a glance the feeling which is present 
with any person, be it love or anger, pride or 
humility, hope or despair. A painter can catch 
these evanescent appearances, as exhibited by 
the countenance, and fix them permanently on 
canvass* A theatrical performer can imitate 
them with corresponding intonations of voice 
and motion of his limbs. A dramatist can make 
artificial persons whose speeches will conform to 
the feelings that he endues them with, while 
the interlocutor in the dialogue will express by 
his answers the feelings which the speeches nat- 
urally excite. Nay, all of us, when we meet a 
friend who is in distress, know how to adapt our 
countenance, language, intonation, and actions 
so as to express sympathy, though perchance 
we feel it not, except as our effort to represent 
the sympathy causes us to feel it : for we are so 
constituted that the feeling of sympathy will 
arise in us when we assume the look, language, 
tone, and actions that belong to sympathy. I 
assert the like to be a general rule, and that a 
man can excite in himself any feeling if he will 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 133 

speak, look, and act as if he already possessed 
the feeling. The principle is among the most 
important, benevolent, and beneficial contrivan- 
ces of Providence, as it indirectly subjects all our 
feelings to our control. If, for instance, a man 
will speak to his wife, and act towards her as 
he would speak and act if he loved her, his 
words and actions will excite in him love to- 
wards her. If he will speak and act as though 
he is estranged from her, he will soon feel as 
much estranged as his conduct indicates. If 
you will act and speak patriotically, you will 
soon possess the feelings of a patriot. If you 
will speak and act as though you are persecuted, 
you will soon feel that you are a martyr. If 
you will speak and act avariciously, you will 
soon become a miser. 

Who has not seen a man commence calmly 
some narrative of personal grievance, and, be- 
fore he close, excite so forcibly his anger and 
revenge as to gnash his teeth and strike his fists 
violently against each other. When two boys 
fight in jest, they usually, after exchanging a 
few playful threats and blows, find themselves 
fighting in earnest. 

M 



134 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

Horace Walpole wrote a treatise on Historical 
Doubts, and Sir Walter Scott, in commenting 
thereon, says, " It is remarkable to observe how, 
in defending a system, which was probably, at 
first, adopted as a mere literary exercise, Mr. 
Walpole's doubts acquired in his own eyes the 
respectability of certainties, in which he could 
not brook contradiction." So, let circumstances 
place a man in a public meeting as the advocate 
of temperance, and, while he endeavours to 
prove that you ought not to drink brandy, he 
will convince himself (whether right or wrong I 
will not say) that you ought not to drink wine, 
beer, and cider. If he dwell long on the topic, his 
feelings may mount up to an interdict of even tea 
and coffee. I have seen a man harangue against 
the oppression of the Greeks by the Turks, the 
oppression of the Poles by the Russians, the op- 
pression of the blacks by the whites, till, kin- 
dling as he proceeded, he who commenced his 
speech reluctantly, ended it a champion enlisted 
for life. During our Greek enthusiasm some 
years past, a collection to aid the Greeks was 
made in one of the New-York churches, and so 
perverted from the spirit of Christianity had our 
whole community become on the subject by con- 
stant reading, meetings, and speaking in behalf of 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 135 

the Greeks, that a member of the congregation 
placed a dagger in the plate as his contribution, 
and the act was deemed both decorous and 
praiseworthy. We already look back on this 
religious occurrence with about the- same aston- 
ishment as we experience in reading narratives 
of the early crusaders ; but let us not believe 
that we possess an exemption from similar ex- 
travagances, but rather learn from them the in- 
fluence over our feelings that is exercised by our 
words and actions. 

Nearly every man possesses one topic that is 
more the subject of his speech and actions than 
any other, and on that topic his feelings will 
usually become excessive. A musician will 
sometimes deem all art inferior to the science of 
music. A painter will deem paintings the height 
of human achievement. A lawyer may become 
equally warped by his pursuits ; the physician 
and the divine by theirs ; the phrenologist by 
his. The man who makes gain the chief em- 
ployment of his speech and actions, will often 
deem money the only object worthy of regard ; 
while another, equally perverted in his feelings 
by excessive attention to the subject, will deem 
fame the only substantial good. The protracted 



136 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

discussions Which annually precede our political 
elections throw our whole community into a pe- 
riodical excitement, that, when estimated with 
reference to the small personal interest that usu- 
ally pertains to such contests, well sustains the 
sarcastic definition of party strife, that it is the 
madness of the many for the benefit of the few. 
When a man receives an injury from another, he 
may excite himself to any degree of revenge if 
he will only continue to make the injury the 
subject of his speech and actions. The confec- 
tioner in Philadelphia, who lately murdered his 
daughter for marrying contrary to his inclina- 
tion, is doubtless an example of the enormity to 
which our feelings may be stimulated by our 
words, thoughts, and actions. 

If, therefore, you desire to feel complacency 
towards mankind, and general philanthropy, you 
must habitually speak and act as if you possess- 
ed complacency and philanthropy. Your feel- 
ings will soon harmonize with your words and 
actions. If you wish to possess the venom of a 
fiend, nothing is necessary but to speak and act 
as though you possessed such venom, and you 
will soon possess it. If you would love your 
children, and not be irritated by their playful- 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 137 

ness, speak and act as love and patience would 
dictate, and you will soon feel as a parent ought 
to feel. A hired nurse, who is compelled by her 
condition to expressions of tenderness and acts 
of forbearance, will soon love the infant who 
abridges nightly her sleep ; while its father, if 
he even unmeaningly fret at its irritability and 
helplessness, will soon feel it to be an intolerable 
burden. If a son would feel affection towards 
his parents, he must speak and act affectionately. 
If a scholar would honour his instructers, he 
must act and speak respectfully. If he would 
feel contempt for them, nothing more is neces- 
sary than to act and speak contemptuously ; the 
contempt will speedily follow. You can apply 
the principle to all the relations of life : friend, 
brother, master, magistrate ; and acquire all the 
feelings which ought to pertain to those rela- 
tions, as hospitality, affection, benevolence, and 
respect; or acquire the feelings that ought not 
to pertain to them, as inhospitality, aversion, ma- 
levolence, and disrespect. 

I will not assert that, in spite of counteracting 

influences, a man will in all cases be able to 

thus produce in himself love, or that he can in 

any case excite immediately the feeling that he 

M2 



138 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

wishes to excite; yet, to a great extent, the 
moral prescription will be efficacious immediate- 
ly, while its ultimate success is almost certain. 
The subjection of our feelings to our indirect 
control you cannot appreciate properly till you 
reflect that they could not have been subjected 
to the direct control of our will without the most 
disastrous consequences. If, for instance, I could 
not feel fear till I willed to feel it, I should lose 
the benefit of a counsellor who is now ever vi- 
gilant to warn me against danger. If I could not 
feel repugnance to crime till I willed to feel it, I 
should lose the benefit of an accuser that now 
spontaneously admonishes me when I contem- 
plate the commission of evil. If we could not 
feel compassion till we willed to feel it, the beg- 
gar, who in our streets forces contributions from 
even avarice, might starve before he could find a 
man who would will to be compassionate. 

Our religious feelings can be controlled by the 
same methods. Would we possess submission 
to the events of Providence (and what feeling is 
so well adapted to a being who at any moment 
may be deprived of wife, children, health, and 
property ?), we must speak and act submissively ; 
would you love God, you must speak and act as 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL, 139 

though you loved him. When. I was a young 
man, I joined a party one Sunday afternoon to 
visit Harlaem. My companions were as gay as 
youth and high health could render them ; and, 
when we entered a private room, one of the 
young men commenced, in mere wantonness, an 
extempore prayer. As he proceeded, he diver- 
ged from levity to seriousness ; his words exci- 
ting, unexpectedly, the feelings to which his lan- 
guage and actions bore affinity ; and the speak- 
er ended amid the embarrassment of half earnest- 
ness and half jest. 

Even belief, which the Bible implicitly exacts, 
and which we often deem the most unreasonable 
of its exactions, being, we affirm, entirely beyond 
our control, is as tractable as any other of our 
feelings. We may believe in opposition to the 
clearest revelations of our intellect, and nothing 
is more common. A man may be intellectually 
certain that he can pass a night within a church- 
yard without supernatural molestation; yet he 
may be unable to so repress a belief in supernat- 
ural agencies as to prevent fear. A drunkard 
may vow reformation, and believe that he will 
never infringe it ; while he may be intellectually 
certain, from having repeatedly broken similar 



140 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL, 

vows, that he will break the present. We often 
express surprise at the incredulity of parents. 
One will not believe that his son is profligate, 
though every other person is convinced of the 
fact, without knowing half the instances of his 
profligacy that are known to the parent. Be- 
lief, therefore, is no exception to the control that 
man possesses over his feelings; belief, not in 
the Bible alone, but in the revelations of Ma- 
thias, in Mormonisra, witchcraft, the clairvoy- 
ance of animal magnetism, and, consequently, in 
anything, how intellectually absurd soever, pro- 
vided we will act and speak for a season in ac- 
cordance with the belief which we desire to cre- 
ate in ourselves. Nay, in reference to this pli- 
ancy of belief, we often say that a man may. ut- 
ter so frequently a known untruth as eventually 
to believe it. 

The impulse which our feelings receive from 
our words and actions accounts for the sudden 
explosiveness of feeling which usually occurs 
when persons confess either love or hatred to- 
wards each other, or when a person publicly ded- 
icates himself to religion ; and, indeed, in every 
case in which a man announces the possession 
of any feeling, be it repentance or defiance. A 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 141 

child is sometimes whipped till it will admit sor- 
row for its offence. I recommend no such dis- 
cipline ; but even the compulsory admission of 
repentance will sometimes excite the feeling 
which the words and actions are made to as- 
sume. So the repentance which the Bible en- 
joins will sometimes instantly, and always ulti- 
mately, be produced by the employment of words 
and actions which imply repentance. We some- 
times allege that we cannot repent ; but the ini- 
tiatory steps are in our power, and we must re- 
sort to them if we would control our feelings, just 
as we must take the initiatory steps when we 
want to erect a house or possess an orchard. 

You may ask whether I intend to recommend 
hypocrisy, since I require a man to act and speak 
differently from what his feelings may dictate. 
I answer no. I wish him to profess all that is 
virtuous, and to act conformably to the profes- 
sion. This is his duty, and he possesses the 
power of compliance ; for his words and actions 
are subject to his will. But he possesses not the 
feelings which the words and actions indicate. 
This he cannot help, for his feelings are not sub- 
ject to his will. But they are controllable, and 
will conform to his words and actions ; hence, to 



142 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

insist that he will not speak and act as duty re- 
quires, by reason of his not possessing first con- 
genial feelings, is as unreasonable as for a sailor 
to insist that he will not hoist his anchor, by rea- 
son of his not being first under way. The sailor 
would be endeavouring to reverse the order 
which Providence has established for the gov- 
ernment of the physical world, and the other 
would be endeavouring to reverse the order 
which Providence has established for the gov- 
ernment of the moral world. If duty required 
that a man should marry a particular woman, 
would he refuse to look at her and speak to her, 
by reason that he did not love her ? Would he 
not say, in the significant language of experi- 
ence, that he would try to love her 1 and, in 
compliance with his resolution, would he not 
approach her, look at her, speak kindly to her, 
act kindly towards her % and would any one be 
surprised if eventually he loved her ? 

If a man possessed no control over his feelings, 
he would be as unreliable as a tiger, whose un- 
fitness for domestication may arise from such a 
defect. When provoked, he would be necessi- 
tated to fight ; when alarmed, he would be com- 
pelled to flee. He would marry to-day, under 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 143 

the influence of desire ; desert his wife to-mor- 
row, under the influence of satiety. He would 
one day consecrate a church, the next day des- 
ecrate it. If he awoke in good humour, he 
would act benevolently ; if in bad humour, ty- 
rannically. Every man's feelings are sufficient- 
ly versatile for these alternations ; but, by the 
control over them which our words and actions 
possess, most of us pass through life with a rea- 
sonable degree of consistency and decency of 
feeling, as well as of appearance. 

Having shown how we may excite in our- 
selves love towards any particular individual, 
benevolence towards all men, humility under 
prosperity, courage under danger, dignity under 
adversity, forgiveness under persecution, and all 
other desirable feelings, nothing more seems ne- 
cessary to self-control. But, practically, we still 
retain, as an essential part of our nature, hatred, 
pride, revenge, envy, and other undesirable feel- 
ings, which will arise in us, like heat and cold, 
on the presentation of proper appliances. And, 
when they arise, though our words, thoughts, 
and actions are not compelled to obey them, yet 
the tendency to obedience is powerful. Our feel- 
ings are the steam which puts in motion our 



144 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

words, thoughts, and actions. Without the feel- 
ing of hunger a man will not eat ; especially will 
he not under the feeling of disgust. Without 
courage he will not oppose danger ; especially 
will he not under the feeling of fear. Hence, 
where you do not feel humility, you will find 
some practical difficulty in speaking and acting 
humbly; and the difficulty will be infinitely 
greater while you are under the influence of 
pride. When you do not feel love, you will find 
some difficulty in speaking and acting affection- 
ately; and the difficulty will be infinitely in- 
creased while you are under the influence of 
hatred. 

Two obstacles, therefore, exist against our sys- 
tem of self-control ; but the first is easily sur- 
mounted. When the desire of drink is absent, any 
drunkard can easily vow reformation. While 
weariness and disgust are not present, any slug- 
gard can be laborious and diligent ; and Satan 
himself, we are told by a proverb, is not morose 
when he is not displeased. The only great ob- 
stacle is the influence of adverse feelings : of 
speaking and acting affectionately when we are 
under the influence of aversion ; of speaking and 
acting courageously when we are under the in- 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 145 

fluence of fear ; of speaking and acting humbly 
. when we are under the influence of pride. 

The difficulty I admit to be great ; and, in 
view of its magnitude, no dictate of wisdom and 
morality is more obvious than to avoid, when we 
can, the excitation in ourselves of any feeling 
which tends to produce conduct that we desire 
not to practise. The means of such avoidance 
are much within our power, and can be stated 
in one general rule : refrain from every word, 
thought, and action that would naturally pro- 
ceed from the feeling that you desire not to ex- 
cite. If you would not feel envy towards a 
prosperous friend, avoid every word, thought, 
and action in relation to him that you would 
employ if you envied him. If you would not 
become avaricious, avoid the words, thoughts, 
and actions that belong to avarice. If you would 
not feel unbelief, avoid the words, thoughts, and 
actions which unbelief would dictate. If a young 
woman would avoid any complacency of feeling 
towards a profligate man, she must avoid all 
w r ords, thoughts, and actions in relation to him 
that complacency would dictate. If you would 
not feel hatred against your enemies, impatience 
under the painful dispensations of Providence, 
N 



146 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

contempt towards your inferiors, arrogance to- 
wards your dependants, meanness towards your 
superiors, malice towards your persecutors, avoid 
the w r ords, thoughts, and actions which these 
several feelings would dictate if you possessed 
them. 

The efficacy of the above rule, and, indeed, of 
all the preceding rules, depends on a principle 
which, when applied to our thoughts, is termed 
the association of ideas. If you slip down in 
the street and badly hurt yourself, you will think 
of the accident whenever you pass the spot on 
which it occurred. This process is so familiar 
to us, that we hide from a person any article of 
dress that was worn by a deceased friend. We 
know that the sight of the article will immedi- 
ately excite a recollection of his loss. Our feel- 
ings obey a like principle of association. Per- 
sons who have been frightened in a carriage 
when it has been upset or run away with, are 
sometimes unable ever afterward to enter a car- 
riage without apprehension. The association 
thus accidentally formed between fear and the 
carriage the persons mistake for danger, though 
they may know intellectually, from observation 
and experience, that the occurrence of such ac- 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 147 

cidents is rare, and the danger small. Persons, 
also, who have heard much of midnight super- 
natural horrors, obtain often the feeling of fear, 
strongly associated with darkness and solitude, 
which become thereby insupportable. The fear 
which they feel is compatible with the clearest 
intellectual convictions of its absurdity. A burn- 
ed child dreads the lire, says a proverb. But 
why ? Because the fear and pain which the fire 
once occasioned him are so associated with the 
appearance of fire that he cannot approach it 
without apprehension. 

By the same principle, if I employ towards 
any person the language or actions that I am 
accustomed tp use when I am angry, they will 
excite in me the anger which custom has asso- 
ciated with them. If I employ the language 
and actions of pride, they will excite in me the 
pride that custom has associated with proud 
words and actions. 

To avoid, therefore,' the excitation in yourself 
of any undesirable feeling, the importance is ob- 
vious of avoiding all words, thoughts, and ac- 
tions with which the feeling is associated. A 
person may resolve that he will no longer mourn 



148 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

for his deceased friend ; yet, if he will seclude 
himself from society, and keep pondering over 
the endearing qualities of the deceased, grief 
will inevitably ensue by virtue of its association 
with the words and actions that you persist in 
employing. A person listening to a dull sermon 
may resolve that he will not sleep ; yet, if he 
will close his eyes and recline his head, drowsi- 
ness and sleep will almost inevitably follow. 

When a man is insulted who desires not to 
return evil for evil, he may, in the language of 
the Bible, " let alone contention before it is med- 
dled with," and remain self-possessed ; but, if 
he will retort injurious expressions or injurious 
actions, he will, despite his resolutions, excite in 
himself anger and revenge, and, thus induced, 
he may plunge a dagger in the heart of his op- 
ponent. So irresistibly, almost, are we governed 
by our feelings, after we have permitted them to 
be excited in us, that the law meliorates the pen- 
alty of homicide when committed under sudden 
excitement. But I doubt if the law ought thus 
to respect our feelings when we assist in exci- 
ting them. We ought then to be classed with 
drunkards, who, having dementated themselves, 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 149 

are not permitted to allege such madness in ex- 
tenuation- of crimes thereby induced. 

That a husband should feel respect for the un- 
derstanding of his wife is desirable, not only for 
his gratification, but for her self-complacency. I 
knew a man who probably would have assented 
to this proposition, and yet, to amuse his visiters, 
that happened to be numerous, he acquired a 
habit of speaking contemptuously to his wife, 
making her a butt for his pleasantry. He may 
have intended to " give honour unto his wife," 
but he soon felt towards her the contempt which 
his language had first only assumed ; and, their 
intercourse becoming intolerable, they separated. 
The impolicy of his conduct (viewing it simply 
with reference to policy) was contrasted at the 
time by another member of the same society, a 
man in an elevated station, who possessed great 
intellectual and moral endowments. His wife 
was weak intellectually ; still, the great deference 
with which he always listened to her remarks, 
and the general respect with which his visiters 
saw him always treat her, prevented them from 
discovering the intellectual difference which ex- 
isted between the husband and wife, and doubt- 
less prevented the husband himself from being 
N2 



150 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

shocked with it, and the wife from being dis- 
couraged at it. These are not fancy sketches. 
Some of you may recollect the originals. 

Even loud speaking is unfriendly to calmness 
of feeling ; not only by reason of the association 
which habit may have established between loud 
speaking and turbulent feelings, but also by rea- 
son of an exciting power which loud speaking 
seems to possess naturally. Rude nations, when 
rushing into battle, excite their courage and ex- 
asperate their animosity by loud cries, and even 
civilized nations employ the same expedient 
when the onset of battle is close and personal. 
This natural effect of loud speaking is a great 
obstruction to theatrical acting in cases where 
gentle feelings are to be expressed. The actor 
must speak loud, or he cannot be heard ; but he 
cannot speak loud without destroying in himself 
all illusion of gentleness, and hence increasing 
the natural difficulty of his imitation. We ac- 
cordingly find that actors are usually more suc- 
cessful in characters that exhibit the turbulent 
feelings of ambition, rage, and courage, than in 
characters that exhibit the tranquil feelings of 
domestic peace and social benevolence. The 
Bible, in its injunctions, is particular in prescri- 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 151 

bing, not the substance only of our speech, but 
the manner. It says, " Let your speech be al- 
ways with grace." " The words of the wise 
are heard in quiet." 

Our thoughts, of which I have, as yet, pur- 
posely omitted to speak, are less influential over 
our feelings than our words. Yet, let no man 
estimate thoughts as powerless. The Bible says, 
" Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought." 
No injunction is more judicious ; and not for the 
reason that the king may hear us, but to prevent 
the excitation in ourselves of the feelings which 
produce cursing. If we would not feel hatred 
against our enemies, we must refrain from not 
only openly reviling them, but from reviling 
them in thought. The like may be said of all 
our feelings. Both good thoughts and bad will 
arise in us without premeditation, and even 
against our will ; but their continuance with us 
depends much upon our will. A thought is like 
a timid stranger. He shows himself at your 
door, but will not walk in unless you invite him, 
nor tarry unless you evince a wish to detain him ; 
but, after being cordially entertained, you may 
not get rid of him without difficulty. 



152 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

Every prominent action, good and bad — the 
voyage of Columbus, that discovered a New 
World ; the invasion of Russia, that lost Napo- 
leon the Old World — was originally nothing but 
a wandering thought in the mind of the actor. It 
might have been repelled never to return, and 
America would have been yet undiscovered, and 
Europe still in subjection to Napoleon. But the 
thought was cherished till it became familiar, 
and familiarized till it excited a feeling in its fa- 
vour ; and then the process to overt action came 
within the same instinct which urges us to pro- 
cure food when we are hungry, and rest when 
we are weary. We cannot too much admire 
the forecast with which the Bible, in numerous 
passages, enjoins on us purity of thought : " Set 
your heart unto all the words which I command 
you." " Wash thine heart from wickedness, 
that thou mayst be clean." " God knoweth 
your hearts." " God is good to such as are of a 
clean heart." By all which expressions, I un- 
derstand that we are enjoined to conform to the 
requirements of the Bible, not in words only and 
in actions, but in thought and feeling. 

But the rule which we have stated for the 
avoidance of injurious feelings relates to only 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 153 

our words, thoughts, and actions. Other causes 
affect our feelings. We are counselled to " look 
not on the wine when it is red, when it giveth 
its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself 
aright." But why not 1 Because the sight may- 
excite in us a desire to drink. We shall great- 
ly underrate the example if we confine its ap-* 
plication to intoxicating drinks. It is illustrative 
of a general principle ; founded on which is the 
prayer, "Give me neither poverty. nor riches." 
We can understand why we should pray against 
poverty, but we may not assign the reason 
which the Bible assigns: "Lest I be poor and 
steal." Poverty is not necessarily connected 
with dishonesty; but poverty denying us the 
means of lawfully gratifying many of our de- 
sires, we are tempted to an unlawful gratification 
of them. The rich but rarely steal, and commit 
the same crimes that the poor commit. This, 
proceeds from no moral superiority over the 
poor, but from the smaller temptation to which 
the rich are exposed. But the same prayer says, 
" Give me not riches ;" and it assigns a reason, 
" lest I be full and deny God." Riches are not 
necessarily connected with pride, presumption, 
and thanklessness ; but riches, by yielding us the 
ready means of gratifying our desires, tempt us 



154 THE AKT OF SELF-CONTROL. 

to a supercilious independence which is unfa- 
vourable to several moral and religious injunc- 
tions. 

The foregoing principle has not escaped ob- 
servation ; and by it, more than by any other rule, 
is regulated the degree of familiarity which is 
permitted between men and women ; the amuse- 
ments that are deemed innocent, the dress that 
is reputable, the extent to which we may blame- 
lessly expose unguarded property, and the por- 
tion of our time which we may dissipate in idle- 
ness. The principle is illustrated by Scott in 
the adventures of two young men, who are ap- 
parently amiable, and commencing together a 
friendly journey. One of them, an Englishman, 
is unarmed ; but the other, a Scotchman, wears 
a dirk. The Scotchman is requested not to wear 
his dirk ; and the adviser professes to see, like 
Macbeth, gouts of blood upon the blade — Eng- 
lish blood. No fears could be more apparently 
unreasonable ; yet, before night, the travellers 
quarrelled. The Scotchman was excited by re- 
ceiving a blow from the Englishman, and the 
possession of a dirk suggested a fatal revenge : 
he stabbed his companion through the heart. 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 155 

I knew a man who frequently found his street 
door locked, owing to the timidity of his wife. 
He believed the precaution only a vexatious ob- 
struction to his entrance* He kept remonstra- 
ting, but the practice was repeated. At length, 
as regularly as he rang for admittance, he be- 
came angry. He perceived the folly of discord ; 
but his anger had become so associated with the 
obstruction that he could not separate them, and, 
as his only peaceful remedy, he abandoned the 
front door, and accustomed himself to enter his 
house by an open back door. You may laugh 
at this stratagem to avoid his own irascibility, 
and may think that he ought rather to have con- 
tested with his wife for mastery; but, without 
expressing my own opinion on so delicate a 
question, I adduce the anecdote to exhibit the 
agency that circumstances exercise over our feel- 
ings. 

But temptation is not confined to the excita- 
tion of feelings that we ought to restrain. We 
read of " provoking each other unto love and 
good works." The foresight of man is so lim- 
ited, that the events of life are rarely determined 
by premeditation, but by accident or its equiva- 
lent. If we place ourselves within the range of 



156 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

good influences, the accidents which occur will 
partake of these influences, and be beneficial to 
us. If we place ourselves within the range of 
evil influences, the accidents will be injurious. 
Two men may arise together from the same din- 
ner-table and emerge from the same door, both 
equally void of any definite object, and equally 
innocent in intention ; but one, by strolling with- 
in the influences of vice, may return home with 
disease incipient in his body, and a fatal friend- 
ship commenced in his feelings ; while the other, 
by mingling in virtuous society, may return home 
with the acquisition of an acquaintance that is 
to yield him domestic peace and social import- 
ance. 

Our Saviour was found in the temple at Jeru- 
salem, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
hearing them and answering their questions. 
Tradition says that the meetings thus alluded to 
were held statedly, to deduce from the Scriptures 
practical rules of conduct as well as speculative 
doctrines. The result of these discussions still 
exist in books called the Talmud. The text, 
" Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, 55 they 
held to be violated by every exposure to phys- 
ical dangers that a man unnecessarily hazards; 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 157 

as by needlessly walking on the brink of a pre- 
cipice, walking under a ladder, or handling bro- 
ken glass and earthenware. A similar applica- 
tion of the text is given by the Saviour himself, 
when commanded by Satan to cast himself down 
from the pinnacle of the temple, and rely for se- 
curity on a special interposition of Providence. 
But the text is equally applicable, and more, to 
unnecessary exposures to evil moral influences ; 
and the man who is so little acquainted with 
human nature, or so reckless, as to disregard the 
prohibition, is just in the condition to become a 
victim to the breach of it. 

Yet how much soever I may prevent injurious 
feelings by forbearing words, thoughts, and ac- 
tions with which they are associated, and by 
shunning external provocations, yet anger will 
arise within me, and malice, envy, selfishness, 
avarice, pride, emulation, ambition, and every 
other feeling. Exemption from them was not 
experienced by the hermits of old, who for that 
purpose secluded themselves from the world; 
much less will it be experienced by us. This 
brings me to consider the means by which I may 
resist the control of my feelings when their influ- 
ence is present. 

O 



158 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

The words and actions that we first perform 
in obedience to any powerful feeling, operate 
like vent to fire that is raging within a closed 
building. The vent renders the feeling inde- 
pendent usually of further control, and it must 
thereafter run its course, like a malignant fever 
that is past the brief period in which it can be 
arrested. We accordingly find, whenever a per- 
son stabs another on a sudden outbreak of pas- 
sion, that the first stab, though it kill, increases 
the energy of the passion, and induces to numer- 
ous subsequent wounds, that are inflicted in only 
blind obedience to a rage no longer controllable, 
and whose fury must in some way expend itself. 

But whether we will give vent to our feelings 
or not is within the control of our will. We 
know the story of a woman who destroyed her 
happiness and her husband's by scolding at his 
irregularities, and who at length reclaimed her 
husband and became happy by filling her mouth 
with cold water, and keeping it there while she 
felt angry. The moral of the story is applicable 
to every passion, and the prescription is doubt- 
less alluded to in the injunction of the Bible, 
"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 
Our feelings are really as evanescent as light- 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 159 

ning, unless we keep them alive by our words, 
thoughts, and actions. 

Instead, however, of strangling our feelings, 
we may vanquish them, which is preferable, as 
it will tend to prevent their recurrence. The 
mode consists in uttering words and performing 
actions that are opposite to those which the com- 
bated feelings dictate. " Do good for evil." 
" Render blessing for cursing." " If thine ene- 
my hunger, feed him ; if naked, clothe him." 
We often estimate these precepts as merely the 
wishes of the lawgiver ; but they are elucidations 
of a profound principle of our nature, like the 
prescriptions of a physician, who, when our hand 
is frozen, commands us to thrust it into cold wa- 
ter or rub it with snow, and not to obey our in- 
clination by placing it before a fire. 

But Nature, which enables us, for th# harmony 
and benefit of mankind, to either vanquish our 
malevolent feelings or smother them, has, for the 
same reasons, withheld from us the power of ter- 
minating them by indulgence. The female who, 
in her domestic duties, yields to irritability, seeks 
in vain to allay it by scolding. The process 
only increases her disorder, and she becomes a 



160 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

torment to herself, her husband, children, and 
servants. She eventually imagines that every 
event is specially arranged for her annoyance, 
though her only difficulty is, that her irritability 
is so increased by indulgence as to be annoyed 
by everything. She is like a person who has 
made herself giddy, and then thinks that every- 
thing around her is rotary. 

An avaricious man illustrates the same retrib- 
utive principle. He endeavours in vain to al- 
lay his avarice by accumulating wealth. His 
avarice will grow by indulgence, and he will 
mistake the growth for an increase of his neces- 
sities ; hence, the more he practises accumula- 
tion, the more self-denying, penurious, and 
grasping he becomes. In the opinion of the 
world, he daily becomes richer ; in his own feel- 
ings, he daily becomes poorer. Every possession 
also seem& to become daily more insecure, and 
every security daily more suspicious, though the 
only difficulty is, that his suspicion and fears so 
increase by indulgence as to be alarmed by 
everything, and incapable of being satisfied by 
anything. He mistakes the increase of his fears 
for an increase of danger, and the diminution of 
his confidence for an augmentation of treachery 
in other men. 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 161 

The misanthrope, too, who, in his intercourse 
with the world, yields to envy, seeks in vain to 
allay it by detraction. Objects of envy multiply 
on him faster than he can defame them, though 
the multiplication is produced by only his in- 
creased vigilance in pursuit of enviable objects, 
and his increased malignity in estimating them ; 
till, like Shylock, he attains the ultimate misery 
of believing that he alone is unfortunate, and all 
other men are prosperous and happy. 

But while the feelings that we viciously in- 
dulge are thus not merely insatiable, but subject 
to a growth, which proceeds onward with the 
petulant man till everything offends him, and he 
becomes as explosive as gunpowder ; with the 
jealous man till, like Othello, he sees guilt in the 
most innocent actions ; with the melancholy man 
till everything is coloured by his own gloom, and 
he becomes insane ; with the hypochondriac till 
he feels disease in every pulsation, and contagion 
in every breeze : so the feelings that we virtu- 
ously indulge are subject to a like growth, which 
produces a like delusion, though of a happier 
character. To a man who indulges benevo- 
lence, everybody and everything will continually 
meliorate under the kind influences of his in- 
02 



162 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

creasing benevolence. Viewed through the me- 
dium of his increasing friendliness, everybody 
will seem more and more friendly ; through the 
medium of his increasing patience, everything 
will seem more and more calm; through the 
medium of his increasing resignation, events will 
seem more and more seasonable. 

Swift has said, that to be happy is only to be 
well deceived. This cynical aphorism may ap- 
ply with truth to the soothing influences which 
the indulgence of benevolent feelings exerts over 
our perceptions. The mistress of a family will 
easily mistake the growth of her own forbear- 
ance for increased diligence on the part of her 
servants. A father will easily mistake the growth 
of his paternal feelings for increased loveliness 
on the part of his children ; and the growth of 
his conjugal feelings for increased attractions on 
the part of his wife ; who, instead of deteriora- 
ting by lapse of time (as unhappy old bachelors 
suppose), will hence daily develop new charms 
and increased claims upon his affections. 

We are told by a poet that 

" Honour and shame from no condition rise, 
Act well your part, there all the honour lies." 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 163 

A like remark seems appropriate to our feelings. 
Love is not necessarily the result of any quality 
in the object beloved; for, whom one man loves, 
another may hate. The person also whom you 
love to-day you may hate to-morrow : nothing 
may have changed but your own feelings. Con- 
tent and discontent are severally not the result 
of any given external cause; for what I shall 
view with offence under one state of feeling, I 
shall view with pleasure under another. In a 
garden grow, side by side, a strawberry-vine, a 
tobacco-plant, a rosebush, and a poppy. The 
same earth is common to all, the same sunshine, 
the same shower ; yet from these same sources 
the tobacco-plant draws tobacco, the rosebush 
the tints and fragrance of roses, the poppy opi- 
um, the strawberry-vine strawberries. So the 
events of life are common to all men ; the same 
havoc by death, the same hopes frustrated, the 
same fears realized ; yet from these similar oc- 
currences the patient man extracts patience, the 
impatient man rage, the pious man hope, the im- 
pious man despair, the cheerful man tranquillity^ 
the melancholy man madness. 

These opposite effects prove that happiness 
and misery, despair and hope, depend not on ex- 



164 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

ternal differences, but on different states of feel- 
ing ; hence, if our feelings are as much under 
our control as I have laboured to show they are, 
we can accomplish what is equivalent to controll- 
ing the events of life : we can control the effect 
which the events of life shall produce on us, and, 
parodying the couplet of Pope, say, 

" Happiness and wo from no condition rise, 
In self-control the true distinction lies." 

To attain, however, this result, we must ac- 
custom ourselves to think, act, and speak under 
the guidance, not of our feelings, but of our in- 
tellect. The eye tells us what pleases the sight, 
the taste what gratifies the appetite, but intellect 
must determine whether the eye shall be per- 
mitted to look and the taste to enjoy. , Poison 
may lurk under the sweetest flavour, destruction 
under the fairest appearances. Our feelings, too, 
must be subordinated to our intellect. Anger 
tells us what action will yield it delight, pride 
what answer will yield it gratification ; but intel- 
lect must determine whether anger shall be per- 
mitted to burst forth and pride to retort. The 
answer that thrills us with gratification while 
we are uttering it, and the action which delights 
us while we are performing it, may lead ulti- 
mately, but irresistibly, to the most disastrous 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 165 

consequences. Intellect possesses the power to 
control our words, thoughts, and actions; hence 
we may reasonably infer that such was the func- 
tions that Nature designed it to perform. 

Our feelings cannot prevent this supremacy of 
the intellect. At the command of intellect, the 
limbs of a man will quietly submit to the tor- 
tures of amputation ; and his hands will submis- 
sively adjust his neck, that his head may be sev- 
ered from his body. 

Our feelings tell us the moral qualities of ac- 
tions, as the senses tell us the physical qualities 
of bodies. And lest we should be disposed, in 
the accomplishment of our designs, to disregard 
the moral character of our conduct, our feelings 
are endued with a right of speech and petition, 
of which intellect cannot deprive them. Intel- 
lect must listen to them, though it need not obey. 
But, while intellect is thus intrusted by Nature 
with the high duty of ultimate control over our 
words, thoughts, and actions, it possesses no in- 
tuitive knowledge in the performance of the 
duty. To enlighten it in the discharge of this 
duty was the purport of nearly all the philoso- 
phy of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, as 



166 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

it is now of the various moral speculations of* 
modern philosophers. Before the time of John- 
son, dictionaries existed, but they varied so much 
from each other that they possessed but small 
authority in establishing the orthography of any 
given word ; so, before the diffusion of the Bi- 
ble, the various moral systems were so discord- 
ant that they exerted but small authority in es- 
tablishing the morality of any given action. 
But the principal benefit which the world has 
derived from the Bible is not simply the posses- 
sion of a standard in whose authority most men 
acquiesce (though this is a great benefit), but in 
the possession of a standard whose precepts so 
accord with the organization of man and the 
natural catenation of events, that its injunctions 
are the only conduct that can result beneficially, 
and its prohibitions the only conduct that must 
result injuriously. 

The Bible, too, unlike all other systems of mo- 
rality, is not composed of general propositions, 
whose meaning, like a riddle's, is anything and 
everything to which ingenuity can affix it. It 
abounds with examples, in detail, of both good 
practices and evil, through the whole compass of 
words, thoughts, feelings, and actions ; prohibit- 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 167 

ing the evil and enjoining the good. It com- 
mands us, among an infinite variety of detail, to 
admonish one another; to exhort, rebuke, and 
edify. To bear with each other's weakness and 
infirmities. To comfort one another ; to give and 
receive counsel. To honour each other ; to for- 
bear, forgive, and compassionate. To be faith- 
ful in our friendships, just in our dealings, blame- 
less in our deportment, courteous in our man- 
ners, exemplary in our conduct (avoiding even 
the appearance of evil), diligent in our business, 
industrious in our habits. To do good even to 
our enemies, and evil to no one. To be gentle, 
harmless, humble, kind, long-suffering, meek, 
merciful, patient, peaceful, piteous. To be tem- 
perate, yet hospitable ; grateful, yet abhor mis- 
chief wherever it may appear. To maintain our 
integrity in every situation. To speak truth un- 
der all circumstances. To repent of evil and 
make restitution, but to be persevering and stead- 
fast in all that is good. To be righteous, sin- 
cere, submissive, and .obedient. To love man- 
kind, rely on God, cultivate resignation ; to have 
no fellowship with the wicked, and to strive after 
perfection. 

On the other hand, it prohibits anger, arro- 



168 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

gatice, backbiting, slander, evil speaking, covet- 
ousness, cruelty, boasting, cursing, drunkenness, 
envy, malice, oppression, pride, strife, stubborn- 
ness, talebearing, quarrelling, railing, profanity, 
and revenge. We must not boast, be haughty, 
exalt ourselves in any way, nor be conceited, 
scornful, contentious, disputatious. We must not 
flatter, lie, whisper, or deceive. We must avoid 
discontent, disobedience, frowardness, grudging, 
fraud, and hate. We must entice no man to 
evil, deceive no man with hypocrisy. We must 
eschew rebellion, murmuring, talkativeness, jeal- 
ousy; be neither idle nor intemperate, jealous 
nor partial, ungrateful nor lukewarm, and, with- 
out fearing the face of man, keep all the com- 
mandments of God. And, after thus providing 
for the procurement of all the good that virtue 
can secure, and the avoidance of all the evil that 
prudence can avert, the Bible forgets not the 
countless ills of disease, death, disappointed 
hopes, from which no conduct can exempt us. 
Against these it teaches us a moral alchymy, by 
which they and every wo can be converted into 
hope, contentment, peace, and often joy. 

Many people deem the whole merit of the Bi- 
ble dependant on the question of its divinity ; but, 



THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 169 

if my estimate of its tenets be correct, the Bible, 
whether human or Divine (though human, I 
think, it cannot be), is precisely such a guide as 
our intellect needs. Even the rules which I 
have stated for the artificial control of our feel- 
ings, and by which rules our feelings may be 
brought in unison with virtue and piety, are 
taught in the Bible. It declares that the sacri- 
fices of the wicked are an abomination to the 
Lord : still it enjoins the sacrifices. 

This is the substance of all my rules. The 
only difference is, that I have stated the mode in 
which the rule produces its effect : the Bible 
commands the avaricious man to distribute alms 
despite his avarice ; the unbeliever to pray de- 
spite his unbelief. I have only added the ex- 
perimental fact, that thus to give alms will ex- 
cite benevolence, and thus to pray will excite 
belief; just as forcibly swallowing a mouthful of 
food will sometimes excite a dormant appetite, 
and condoling with an afflicted friend will excite 
a languid sympathy. 

The like may be said of the rules which I 
have given for the control of the feelings to- 
wards us of other men. I have stated none 
P 



170 THE ART OF SELF-CONTROL. 

which are not found in the Bible. But, finally, 
whether I am correct in my estimate of the Bible 
as a safe guide in the business of life, and wheth- 
er I am correct in the rules which I have given 
for the government of our feelings and the feel- 
ings of others, are experimental propositions ea- 
sily tested ; and, in truth, each one of us is every 
moment testing them. To your own experience, 
therefore, I refer you for either the refutation of 
these propositions and their rejection, or for their 
confirmation and adoption. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Anger, its use, 26 ; how to acquire, 133 ; how to avoid, 145. 

Age, its penalties, 29. 

Avarice, how punished, 30 ; how acquired, 133, 135 ; how 
avoided, 145 ; how increased, 160. 

Ambition, how punished, 30. 

Actions, prejudicial, violate the intentions of nature, 39 ; are 
all of importance, 62 ; their consequences can be predict- 
ed, 113 ; instances in Arnold and Washington, ibid. ; when 
performed selfishly, 116; when disinterestedly, 117. 

Arrogance, how avoided, 145. 

Alcohol, the use of, 77. 

Authors, how to succeed, 83. 

Almsgiving, when rewarded, 95. 

Appetites obey determinate laws, 10. 

B. 

Bible, its merits as a moral guide, 66, 96, 99, 102 ; not de- 
pendant on the question of its divinity, 168 ; its injunc- 
tions are founded on our organization, 97 ; are often eluci- 
dations of some profound principle of human nature, 159 ; 
its religious injunctions are paralleled by like injunctions in 
human governments, 97 ; a summary of its moral require- 
ments, 167 ; and of its moral prohibitions, 168. 

Belief, how obtained, 140. 

Benevolence, how increased, 161. 

Books, how written, 26. 



172 INDEX. 

c. 

Children, how to make more lovely, 162 ; how protected by 
Providence, 104; their discernment, 124. 

Cheerfulness, how forced on us by nature, 16. 

Character of human nature, how preserved without change, 
11 ; the benefits of its unchangeableness, ibid.; an indi- 
vidual's, how lost and gained, 62 ; when within our choice, 
64. 

Courage, its use, 28. 

Celibacy, how punished by Providence, 30. 

Comforts, our use of them enforced by nature, 31. 

Crimes, punishment of provided for by nature, 41 ; conduce 
to further crimes, 40. 

Criminals differ but little from other men, 51 ; their crimes, 
how avoided, 52. 

Contempt for any person, how acquired, 137. 

Cruelty to animals, why immoral, 54 ; its progress, 55. 

Cannibal, an account of one, 124. 

D. 

Death is beneficent, 15, 20, 22 ; becomes eventually an ani- 
mal gratification, 16. 

Dishonesty provided against by nature, 39 ; and its detection, 
41. 

Dissimulation, its difficulties, 125. 

Different results of life from trivial differences of conduct, 
156. 

Disinterestedness enforced by Providence, 93. 

Disapprobation, a natural punishment of offences, 58. 

Duties, a summary of them, 167 ; our performance not left 
to our choice, 71 ; but coerced by Nature, 72 ; and to per- 
form them in the best manner, ibid. ; rewards attendant on 
compliance, 73. 



INDEX. 173 

E. 

Evils are not inflicted on us by Providence from choice, 19, 
23, 30 ; are properly deplored by men, 20, 25 ; are inevi- 
table consequences of counterbalancing benefits, 21 ; only 
casually result in direct benefits, 23. 

Evil conduct, its semblance, why dangerous, 54. 

Ethics best learned from the Bible, 102. 

Excellence, how attained, 29. 

Elevation, its price, ibid. 

Earthquakes, their use, 24. 

Envy cannot be disguised, 109 ; how to avoid, 145. 

Excitement, how produced, 134 ; political, its usual charac- 
ter, 136. 

Events of life, how controlled, 164. 

F. . 

Female love, how obtainable, 116. 

Fool, who is the greatest, 46. 

Fear, its use, 27. 

Fever, fire, frost, 20. 

Foundling, the history of one, 46. 

Future rewards and punishments, a principle of human, as 
well as of Divine government, 31. 

Feelings, counterfeit, are not as effective as genuine, 121 ; 
how detected, 122. 

Feelings of the world, how cultivated in our favour, 111. 

Feelings, our own, if we can control them, we can command 
those of other men, 128 ; how to control them, 129 ; how 
to acquire those we wish, 134, 137 ; how to escape those 
we do not wish, 143, 145, 158 ; influence our actions, 53 ; 
our tendency to obey them is great, 148 ; when viciously 
indulged become insatiable, 161 ; their effect on our ap- 
pearance, 133 ; they are explosive in their nature, 131. 
P2 



174 INDEX. 

Feelings are intuitive, 11 ; all men possess the same, ibid. ; 
with modifications, ibid. ; accord beneficially with the 
cause that excites them, ibid. ; obey a principle of associ- 
ation like thoughts, 148. 

G. 

Gambling, its hurtfulness not easily accounted for or antici- 
pated, 56. 

Good-humour, how enforced by Providence, 92. 

God not benefited by human worship and obedience, 98. 

Golden rule, possesses opposite applications, 115; what is 
necessary to its efficacy for good, 118 ; can bring on us 
evil also, 129. 

George the Fourth, a letter to his wife, 129. 

H. 

Hypochondria, Nature's provision against, 18. 

Health, how best preserved, 87. 

Husband, how to make his wife handsome, 162 ; how to gain 

contempt towards her, 149 ; how respect, ibid. 
Happiness, how acquired, 162. 
Hatred, how avoided, 145. 
Honour, when sought improperly, 78. 

Horses, how they obtain from each other what they desire, 116. 
Hares, their cunning, 108. 

Howard, wherein he differed from other philanthropists, lift 
Hypocrisy, 141. 

Human nature, how it can not be improved, 28. 
Hurricanes, 24. 

I. 

Intellect, intended by Nature as the guide of human conduct, 
164 ; its power over the other faculties, 165; to enlighten 
it is the object of all philosophy, ibid. 



INDEX. 175 

Ill-humour, how punished, 92. 

Intemperance, its hurtfulness not easily accounted for or an- 
ticipated, 56. 

Industry, its natural rewards, 30. 

Imprisonment, how it operates on criminals, 43. 

Inanimate bodies obey determinate laws, 9. 

Immorality, in what distinguishable from vice, 44 ; its inju- 
riousness not conventional, but natural, 45 ; its detection 
provided for by Nature, 59, 66 ; and its publication, 60 ; 
and its punishment, 61 ; its dangers not discoverable by 
foresight, nor avoidable by prudence, 50 ; first step in, 63. 

L. 

Love, personal, how acquired, 163 ; how we seek it, 121 ; 

how prevented, 145. 
Love of approbation, a natural conservatory of virtue, 59. 
Love to our neighbour, how enforced by Providence, 93. 
Lafayette, 127. 

Loud speaking, its effect on our feelings, 150. 
Lawyers, how they can prosper, 79, 80, 81, 82 ; how they 

cannot, 58. 
Lies, why sure of detection, 60. 
Legal punishment, referrible to Providence, 42. 
Laws of matter contrasted with laws of thought and action, 

17. 
Laws of animate nature contrasted with those of inanimate, 

18 ; the differences are benevolent, 19. 
Life, its natural guards, 13; how prolonged 29; its natural 

objects, 88. 

M. 

Mutilations punished by Providence, 30. 
Merchants cannot gain by misrepresentation, 58 ; how to 
prosper, 83. 



176 INDEX. 

Mechanics, how to prosper, 83. 

Ministers of the Gospel, how, 85. 

Marriage, how to obtain its benefits, 88. 

Moral qualities exist in sets, 63. 

Moral events obey determinate laws,* 19. 

Moral world, how governed, 142. 

Morality founded on nature and not on compact, 57. 

Motives decide the moral character of conduct, 55 ; and 
govern the feelings of men, 120. 

Martyr, how to become one, 133. 

Misanthropy, how increased, 161. 

Murder, its natural preventives, 14 ; and means of detection, 
39. 

Murderers,* how detected by nature, 14, 40. 

Man's perpetuity, how ensured, 13. 

Men cannot easily deceive each other, 108, 109 ; a little 
crazy usually on some one subject, 135 ; what they would 
be were their feelings uncontrollable, 142 ; cannot easily 
impute to each other unmerited conduct, 107 ; are pre- 
sented with a dilemma, 29. 

N. 

Napoleon, an anecdote, 103. 

Novels, 114. 

Nero, 126. 

Nature suggests the means of gratifying our feelings, 114. 



Optimism, 19. 

Opium, the use of, 77. 

Opinions of the world, how controlled, 110. 

Obstacles to self-government, 143, 144 



INDEX. 177 

P. 

Providence, its retributive justice sometimes misconceived, 

65. 
Parental feelings, how increased and diminished, 137. 
Parents, how to make their children more lovely, 162. 
Politicians, how they can prosper, 84 ; their excitement, 136. 
Physicians, how, 85. 
Pleasure, when it comports with the intention of nature, 74, 

77 ; when it conflicts with the intention, 76. 
Penuriousness cannot be concealed nor disguised, 109. 
Patriotism, how acquired, 133. 
Philanthropy, how acquired, 136. 
Poverty, its moral evils, 153. 
Pain, its uses and limitations, 15. 

Q. 

Qualities cannot generally be falsly imputed to us, 109; 
those which we possess will be imputed to us, ibid. ; how 
we can have imputed to us those that we desire, 110. 

R. 
Revenge, how restrained by Providence, 93 ; how attainable, 

94; how excited, 136. 
Retaliation belongs to our nature, 126. 
Religion, how obtained, 138 ; the use of its observances, 97, 

99 ; its connexion with morals, 99. 
Respect, how acquired, 137. 
Repentance, how obtained, 141. 
Resignation, how increased, 162 ; its use, 98. 
Riches, the temptations they create, 153. 
Riches increase avarice, 160. 
Riches, when they are sought improperly, 78. 
Rectitude, every deviation from hazardous, 52. 



178 INDEX. 

Reputation, how sought viciously, 78. 

Rest, its cost, 29. 

Revelation, in what not needed, 68 ; in what needed, 69. 

S. 

Sorrow, the efforts of Nature to check it, 16. 
Steam power, its calamitous effects occasionally, 21. 
Scolding, how repressed, 158 ; how excited, 159 ; cannot be 

cured by indulgence, 160. 
Submission, how obtained, 140. 
Son, how to like his parents, 137. 
Scholar, how to like his teachers, ibid. 
Servants, how to gain commendation, 89. 
Society compared to a mirror, 127. 
Spider, its cunning, 108. 
Storms, their use, 24. 
Self-denials and sacrifices, why imposed on us, 25 ; when we 

make them unnecessarily we are punished by Providence, 

30. 
Segid, a story of him, 77. 
Solomon's wishes, 79. 
Speakers, how to become popular, 90. 
Suicide, the restraints of art compared with those of Nature, 

43. 

T. 

Tobacco, its use\ 77. 

Title of this book, its intent, 5. 

Tragedians, the natural obstacles to their art, 124 ; what they 

accomplish, 132. 
Temptation, its consequences, 153 ; its power influences our 

customs, 154 ; how resisted, 155 ; is also applicable to 

good actions, 156. 
Thoughts, what they are, 1 1 ; how governed, 151 ; their im- 



INDEX. 179 

portance, 152 ; the order in which they present themselves 
to us, 16 ; contrast beneficially with actions, 17 ; the kinds 
that are dangerous, 52 ; they influence our feelings, 53. 
Tempests, 24. 

V. 

Vanity, its use, 26. 

Virtue, its security as a guide, 47. 

Venom, how acquired, 136. 

Victoria, an anecdote of her, 112, 120. 

Vices exist in sets, 63. 

Vice, how it differs from immorality, 44 ; its injuriousness 
not conventional, but natural, 45, 49 ; its essence, 45 ; its 
insecurity, 48, 49 ; defeats the good it promises, 58 ; how 
Providence deters us from it, ibid. ; first step in, 63 ; its 
results, 64 ; its detection provided for by Providence, 59 ; 
and its publication, 60 ; and its punishment, 61. 

U. 

Unbelief, how avoided, 145. 

W. 

Wealth, how obtained, 29. 

Women, how protected against men by Providence, 104. 

Wife, how to love her, 133 ; how not to love her, ibid. 

World, the most impartial of tribunals, 113 ; constructed on 
a system of dilemma, 21 ; contains all the good that is 
possible, 31 ; with as little evil, ibid. 

Washington, how he differed from most other patriots, 119. 

William the Conqueror, an anecdote of his sons, 112. 

Will, its control, how limited, 138 ; its inability to control 
thought, 17 ; where it can control and where not, contrast- 
ed, ibid. 

Words, theii influence on onr feelings, 140. 



180 INDEX, 

Y. 

Youth at college, how to prosper, 86. 

Z. 

Zeal, how acquired, 134. 



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